A Methodology for Data Structure Assessment in Higher Education Administration. AIR Forum Paper 1978.

Two recent developments in management information system technology and higher education administration have brought about the need for this study, designed to develop a methodology for revealing a relational model of the data base that administrators are operating from currently or would like to be able to operate from in the future. Administrations of higher education have been forced to rely more heavily on information systems to respond to the demands for accountability and allocations of limited resources. Information systems technology through the advent of data base management systems is able to be more responsive to administrative information needs, provided the relationships within the data required by administrators is known. The analysis, conducted at the University of Minnesota, consisted of testing several data grouping techniques including four hierarchical clustering methods, factor analysis, and observation of summary matrices on the data. Complete linkage and average linkage cluster analysis provided what appeared to be the most reliable groupings of the entities and were applied to the data. The methodology does reveal the relationships that respondents perceive to be in the data. The methodology as it was tested was effective as an aid to the data base designer in establishing a relational model of the data base. (Author/JMD)