The modern world thrives on data. Our online footprints are scraped, analyzed, and used to help the modern business world make educated decisions on a daily basis. The world of higher education isn't any different. Everything from program and curriculum development to marketing and recruitment are powered by data. The issue with data is that it is useless without someone to gather, analyze, and present it.

That is where we come in. The Market Research and Analytics Committee was created to make job market insights available to GVSU faculty, staff, and administration to enable them to:

• Make informed decisions about program offerings.
• Identify audiences and geographic locations for marketing program offerings.

If you have a project that requires data analysis and has the approval of the Dean of your college, please fill out the information request form with as much detail as possible. A committee member will contact you to determine how we can help.

Submit a Data Request

President Mantella requested a team of broad thinkers be established with the purpose of mining, analyzing, and reporting on labor market data to drive strategic decisions for GVSU academic program development and marketing. Each committee member represents a specific area of GVSU and brings their own expertise to the team. Team members include:

• Nick Viau: University Marketing (Committee Chair)
• Jeffrey Rollins: College of Education and Community Innovation
• Philip Batty: Institutional Analysis
• Kyle Barnhart: Alumni Relations

Sponsors/Resources:

• Jennifer Allard: University Marketing
• Aaron Lowen: Office of the Provost

The purpose of the committee is to assist Grand Valley colleagues by mining, analyzing, and reporting on labor market data, IPEDS data, and NCES data to identify skill gaps, market needs/opportunities, and competitive landscapes. The committee can tackle a multitude of tasks, including:

• Academic Program Development
• Job Market Research
• Recruitment Opportunities
• Marketing Selling Points
• Competitive Research
• Identifying In-Demand Skills
• Economy Overview by Area
• Industry/Occupation Examination
• Company Talent Profiles
• Workforce Analysis
• Alumni Outcomes

The bulk of committee work is done in Emsi Economic Modeling. Grand Valley has subscribed to Emsi for labor market data analysis. Emsi pulls public data from a variety of data sets to give it's users an up-to-date view of the past, current, and future markets. Grand Valley's contract includes Emsi's Analyst tool and Outcomes tool. Each committee member has a subscription to Emsi and is an accomplished user.

Types of Data Utilized by Emsi

• Traditional Labor Market Information (LMI) - Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, etc.
• Job Posting Analytics (JPA) - public job postings
• Profile Data - public online profiles and resumes
• Compensation Data - combination of government data and job postings
• Global Data - government and profile data services around the world
• Skills Data - job postings, resumes, online profiles
• IPEDS - publicly reported institution of higher education data
• NCES - national public education data

Tools Used

• Emsi Analyst
• Emsi Skill Extractor

Disclaimer: The committee is not limited to Emsi. Other sources and services, including institutional data, are utilized depending on the project. If information is required beyond the committee's resources, external vendors may be recommended.