The Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) is revising its annual data collection systems and processes. A Maryland Annual Collection (MAC) workgroup, consisting of representatives of the state's community colleges and four-year public and private postsecondary education institutions, was appointed in May to assist Commission staff in the development of the new reporting systems. Dr. Craig Clagett, the college's vice president for planning, marketing, and assessment, is one of three community college representatives on the MAC workgroup.

The Commission is revising its data collection processes for several reasons. MHEC has received funding to significantly upgrade its outdated database structure, which will increase the efficiency and flexibility of data collection, analysis, and reporting. Demands for postsecondary data have increased from the Governor's office, the legislature, and the federal government. The state desires more student-level data to enhance their policy analysis capabilities. The Commission also needs to be able to link its postsecondary student data into Maryland's developing Longitudinal Data System (LDS).

Since 2005, the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) has been developing a longitudinal data system for preK-12 education. Several federal grants have supported this component of the state's Race to the Top program. In July 2010, state law established the Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center Governing Board, and charged it with overseeing creation of a statewide LDS which is to be up and running by December 31, 2014 and must link data on PreK-12 education with postsecondary education and workforce information. The LDS is to be developed jointly by MSDE, MHEC, the University System of Maryland, Morgan State University, St. Mary's College of Maryland, and the state Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation. In June 2012, the state was awarded $3.9 million by the U.S. Department of Education under its Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems grant program to further support the databases and linkages necessary for tracking student performance from PreK-12, through college, and into the workforce.

Current MHEC data systems under review include the Degree Information System (DIS), Employee Data System (EDS), Enrollment Information System (EIS), Financial Aid Information System (FAIS), High School Information System (HGS/SOAR), Transfer Student System (TSS), and the Workforce Investment Act Data System (WIADS). Data currently gathered in ad-hoc collections for the Complete College America initiative and the Governor's StateStat reporting are also being considered by the MAC workgroup. The workgroup is contemplating several new data collection submissions necessary to provide MHEC with the data required for its enhanced analytical needs and the LDS.

The MAC workgroup is to complete plans for the new data collection structure by September 2012, conduct a pilot collection in spring 2013, and have the new processes in place for the data collection year beginning in July 2013.

These new state data collection requirements will demand considerable effort from the college's Information Technology and Institutional Research offices, particularly over the next 18 months as the new requirements are implemented. These new data submissions will provide the state with the potential for policy analyses that are beyond current capabilities, and that will require monitoring and interpretation by the colleges.

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