Data Integrity Gateway (DIG)

The Challenge
In previous years unit surveys have had an ongoing problem with the correct association of academic colleagues to the units which they deliver. Colleagues will be aware that there are examples where they are not attributed to the appropriate units, as well as being linked with units they have no association to. Whilst we always encourage staff who experience this issue to engage with their school PS teams to ensure this is not repeated in the following cycle, the complexity of the data ask for unit surveys risks issues repeating themselves. 

The Solution
In response to this problem surveys have looked to identify a solution that will ensure academic colleagues can have confidence that the data for their units is accurate and will support the best possible survey reporting. The introduction of DIG (Data Integrity Gateway) as part of our survey tool Blue will allow for the dynamic dissemination of unit data to the most appropriate colleagues for simple and easy review and validation within a web browser. Not only will this allow for the best placed colleague to review their data but will also eliminate the current back and forth process of large school-level spreadsheets that require one named colleague to oversee in each school. DIG users have seen reductions on data buy-in time reduce on average from 7 to 2 weeks.

DIG at Manchester 

For course unit surveys 2024-2025 the surveys team will be providing course unit convenors/course unit directors with access to review their unit data. Here convenors/directors will be able to confirm that all of the correct instructors have been attributed to a unit. Where there are inaccuracies the convenor/director will be able to add/remove staff themselves before confirming they are happy with the data for the unit.

Intended Outcomes 
By implementing this system academic colleagues will have the confidence that their surveys will be accurate and include all the correct instructors. Additionally, no one member of staff will be asked to review more than a small number of units, producing a minimal data set to validate. Further, moving forwards surveys will be able to use initial DIG cycles as a starting point for data in future surveys. This will work to remove the repeated attribution of the same inaccuracies in the data. 

Academic colleagues will be allocated 3 weeks to review this data, which will take no more than 10 minutes to review in the vast majority of cases. 

Demo videos can be found in the drop down below

For Semester 1 2024-2025 DIG will be live for review and validation Monday October 7th - Friday October 25th.

Colleagues with questions or support requests should contact teachingandlearningsurveys@manchester.ac.uk