What is Leader Insights?
Leader Insights is a centralized dashboard designed to help campus leaders track progress, measure success, and identify areas for improvement across Watermark products.
At the institutional level, administrators and leaders can explore more than 50 essential questions spanning six Watermark solutions. Additionally, institutions that license Planning & Self-Study with the Market Landscape Data Pack add-on from Lightcast gain access to market landscape insights.
Users can access Institution Leader Insights and Program Leader Insights through the Insights Hub or Planning & Self-Study.
- For more information on all of Leader Insights, please see the resource linked Understanding the Institution Leader Insights Dashboard.
- For instructions on how to access Leader Insights as either an Administrator or a top-level Lead, please see the resource linked Accessing Leader Insights.
Once in the Insights area, you will see tabs across the top containing different categories of data. The areas you see will depend on which tools you have that are integrated in the Watermark Suite. You might see Institution, Continuous Improvement, Faculty, Students, and Labor Market.
Institution & Region Context
If your institution has the Lightcast data pack enabled for Planning and Self-Study, higher education leaders at the institutional-level only will be able to access a widget in Leader Insights. This widget will showcase curated data for Lightcast's Analyst product that includes Region, Industry and Occupation data. This data helps institutions identify trends and provides opportunities that they can deep dive into when informing strategic moves.
In this widget, an institutional administrator can view data from Lightcast’s Regions, sourced from the U.S. Census. Data included in this widget are listed below.
- Regional Demographics and Changes in Population, Jobs & Unemployment and Labor Force
- Regional Labor Force Breakdown
- Top 3 Highest and Lowest Growing Industries & Occupations in Region
*Note- The zip code is based on the address associated with Institution IPEDS ID. Time frame cannot be adjusted, while Distance can be adjusted in increments of 50 miles, from 50-300.
Important questions that can be answered using this data:
What is the overall region (zip and radius) and timeframe that are reflected in these Labor Market insights we are viewing?
What counties are included?
What is the total available population in our region and what proportion does each county represent?
Trends in Populations, Jobs, Labor Force & Unemployment
The data on this chart is an economic overview in regions sourced from the U.S. Census and National Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Important questions that can be answered using this chart:
- How have population, jobs, labor force and unemployment trends changed in our region?
- How do the changes in the region’s jobs compare to the national rate?
Change in Population, Age Cohort & Race/Ethnicity
This shows the data from Lightcast’s Demographic Overview in Regions, sourced from the U.S. Census.
Important questions that can be answered using this chart:
How has the population changed by age cohort?
Are we observing a decline in age cohorts that impact our high school graduation pipeline? If so, do we need to consider targeting more non-traditional students within a specific age cohort or double down on our efforts to recruit high school students?
How has the population changed by race/ethnicity?
Are we observing changes to the race/ethnicity that may warrant changes to recruitment, services, strategic partnerships or other tactics?
Labor Force Breakdown
Labor Force Population data from Economy Overview in Regions, sourced from the U.S. Census and National Bureau of Labor Statistics.
An important question that can be answered using this data:
- What categories within the labor force are addressable for recruitment, e.g. what is the percentage of 16+ Civilian Non-Institutional that are Not in the Labor Force or Unemployed?
Industries
Important questions that can be answered using this data:
What Industries in our region are seeing the highest and lowest positive growth?
How do this trend impact or relate to our existing offerings, and/or opportunities for recruitment, curriculum, or employer partnerships?
Occupations
Important questions that can be answered using this data:
What Occupations in our region are seeing the highest and lowest positive growth?
How do this trend impact or relate to our existing offerings, and/or opportunities for recruitment, curriculum, or employer partnerships?