DataDirect is a business school decision-maker's best friend, capable of generating custom reports to aid in strategic planning of all kinds. To get a better sense of the kind of data you can expect to find in DataDirect for benchmarking, please see our Data Glossary.
If your school participated in a DataDirect survey, or you are a sustaining business member, you can request access to these benchmarking tools from your institution's primary contact.
To get started with benchmarking in DataDirect, you will likely want to choose which Comparison Group you want to use. The Comparison Group is the selection of schools your report will feature. AACSB generates several Comparison Group options each year that you can use. Or you can use the Comparison Group tools in DataDirect to create your own.
Create Your Set:
Comparison Groups: Focus your data set on the schools most relevant to your needs, either by using the Comparison Group wizard to select schools based on their characteristics or by creating comparison groups from scratch by selecting individual schools. For future reference, save these groups in your account and share them across all accounts at your school. Some restrictions apply for confidentiality purposes.
After you know which Comparison Group you want to use, you are ready to choose your reporting tool. DataDirect offers a variety of quick options for easily creating these reports. We recommend that you start with the reports available under the Quick Results tab. If you do not see the report you are looking for on the Quick Results listing, you can use the Report Writer tool (located under the Advanced listing) to create a fully customized report.
Quick Reports: Quick Reports are some of the most popular items in DataDirect benchmarking, featuring some of the most commonly requested datapoints.
Quick Exports: Quick Exports allow you to generate reports that span multiple years on a data set of your choice.
Report Writer: Choose up to 20 variables for use with custom Comparison Groups. The data used can be listed as either complete (per school) or summary (aggregate) depending on the confidentiality of the variables selected.
Tables and Graphs: Choose a single variable to see the mean/median values for that variable across multiple years and view your results in data table or graph form. Select an aggregate number in these tables to view a sorted list for the data used in creating that data point.
Sorted Lists: Choose a single variable to view individual data points. Non-confidential variables are listed per school; individual data points will not be identified by school for any confidential variables.
Slideshows: For benchmarking items that you plan to use more than once, store commonly used or interesting benchmarking results in slide-shows housed in DataDirect for later use.
Custom Variables: Calculate your own custom variables using existing variables and basic mathematical calculations. Once created, these can be used in any variable-based benchmarking tool.
Crosstabs and Frequencies: Choose single or multiple variables for frequency tables with the option to include a crosstab variable.
Now that you have your data set, either in an HTML or CSV format, you are ready to begin your analysis. We recommend that you use your preferred tool (e.g., Microsoft Excel, Tableau, SPSS, Microsoft Power BI, etc.) for analyzing the data. If needed, DataDirect does offer several advanced tools, mentioned above, to aid with data visualization and analysis.
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