Data Analyst - Institutional Research

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This position is in-office in Salt Lake City, UT

Job Profile Summary

The Institutional Analytics and Research (IAR) team supports and enables most university teams, departments, and colleges to make data-informed decisions that lead to better student outcomes. Our analysts, scientists, researchers, and managers are distributed across several teams: Faculty Experience Analytics, Institutional Research, Learning Analytics, Outreach Analytics, and Student Success Analytics.

The IAR Data Analyst is responsible for extracting, processing, analyzing, and reporting on data to produce rigorous, actionable insights and research. They establish and maintain strong relationships with peers and leaders across IAR, Data Engineering, Product Management, Finance, EdTech, and Faculty staff. They perform ad hoc analyses, build standard reports and data visualizations, and deliver information and insights through various methods and media that privilege data storytelling and compress time-to-action.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

• Documents data and analytics needs in projects of medium/high complexity with a student and equity-centered lens, collaborating with peers, cross-functional partners, faculty staff, and leaders. Translates user stories into technical requirements.
• Sets and manages expectation about analytics tasks and activities through clear, timely, and effective communication with partners and stakeholders.
• Identifies adequate data sources and data sets to evaluate hypotheses and produce forecasts.
• Collaborates with Data Engineering in the development of ETL/ELT processes and data pipelines.
• Identifies, investigates, and solves complex data issues, contributing to the accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness, and validity of the university's data.
• Combines data analysis, visualization, and narrative structures to convey information in compelling ways that instigate deliberate action.
• Utilizes software, scripts, and algorithms to perform data-related tasks (e.g. importing, cleaning, transforming, analyzing, displaying) without human intervention.
• Conveys information effectively to peers, partners, and senior leaders, using a variety of resources and formats (synchronous and asynchronous, verbal and written) such as e-mails, presentations, meetings, and workshops.
• Creates and organizes information about processes, projects, operations, data assets, and insights from analyses, making it accessible in ways that increase the university's knowledge and efficiency.
• Writes and interprets technical documentation (e.g., Entity-Relationship, Conceptual, Logical, and Physical data models).
• Contributes actively to the enrichment of the university's data management platforms (e.g., data dictionaries, catalogs, etc.).
• Tracks and reports own progress, dependencies, and challenges diligently.
• Works actively to improve own skills and knowledge through internal and external, formal and informal, structured and unstructured learning. Is a lifelong learner and embodies a growth mindset.
• Understands and abides by the relevant policies and methods to access, use, transform, store, and delete data in responsible, secure, and compliant ways.
• Collaborates effectively with other technical specialists (e.g., data engineers) in the construction of data products, systems, and applications.
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Advanced SQL proficiency, with experience writing queries and subqueries, modifying data (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE), creating views, and knowledge of different join types, filtering, sorting, aggregation, window functions, common table expressions (CTE), and performance tuning.
• Ability to access, retrieve, manipulate, insert, and delete data from relational databases and use it to answer complex business questions requiring knowledge of the university's data assets for a specific domain or department.
• Highly proficient and experienced in using tools like Tableau and Power BI to present data and information utilizing charts, graphs, and maps, in ways that make it easy to understand trends, patterns, and outliers.
• Ability to interpret and design models that describe how data relate to one another and to the properties of the real-world entities they represent.
• Familiarized with descriptive statistics, causal analysis, and inference.
• Comfortable with common project management methodologies and frameworks (e.g., Waterfall, Agile, SDLC).
• Proficient in the MS Office suite, including advanced Excel knowledge.
• Proficient in flowchart and diagramming tools like Miro, Viso, Lucidchart, and similar applications.
• Knowledge of the university's most relevant KPIs and the drivers that affect them.
• Ability to apply sound judgment, systems-thinking, and analytical skills to assess risks, perform root-cause analyses, make recommendations, and drive cross-functional decisions that contribute to the achievement of the university's objectives.
• Ability to perform assigned tasks with high levels of autonomy, reliability, self-direction, and a bias for action. Manages conflicting and concurrent activities with support from their leader(s).

Job Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree
• 3 years of related experience in Data Analysis, Business Intelligence, Data Science, Statistics, Decision Intelligence, Research, Learning Science, or Behavioral/Cognitive Psychology

Working Location

• This position is in-office in Salt Lake City, UT

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The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

How to apply: apply online

Full-time Regular Positions(FT classification, standard working hours = 40)

This is a full-time, regular position that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

The University is an equal opportunity employer.All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.