Wilson Bright

Launching Agent Registry for organizations on @ProductHunt producthunt.com/products/ilo…

When was the last time you actually enjoyed filling out a survey? Duolingo gets people to practice a foreign language every day. Points, streaks, quick wins. People open it before they get out of bed. A survey asks for 8 minutes once. Half of your respondents still don't finish it. The difference isn't the topic. It's the experience. Shorter surveys helped a little. Progress bars helped a little. The dropout problem got quieter, but never went away. Gamified formats consistently outperform standard ones in training and e-learning. Most survey platforms still haven't tried it. Better questions matter. But if nobody opens it, everything fails. Gamification fixes the experience problem. Surveys haven't tested it yet. At BlockSurvey, we are taking a shot at fixing this. If you have any ideas or a wishlist of what you would like to see, please share in the comments.

AI on both sides of surveys is killing research. 1. Respondents answer with ChatGPT (1/3 admit it). 2. Researchers add "synthetic respondents" (AI personas simulating a population) creeping in as a panel substitute. It's an arms race with no end state.

I have put together a small agent to query earnings and income data college wise from the STATS(FVT/GE). It can tell which programs are failing at college. If you are interested, DM me.

At the SCAIR conference last week, one of the IR member asked a simple question: If institutions already file to IPEDS, why do we also have to file to the state? I went down a rabbit hole to look into this question further. Specifically digging into Comission of Higher Educaton at state level. I started with CHEMIS system from South Carolina to find how they are different. I used deep research using Claude for my study and scanning through sources. Below is a quick summary. IPEDS(@ipeds_nces) = aggregate institutional data (totals, averages) CHEMIS(@SCCommHigherEd) = student-level records (individual students, individual scholarships, individual courses) CHEMIS exists because 1. The state administers Palmetto Fellows, LIFE, HOPE, and Need-Based Grants. You can't verify individual scholarship eligibility with IPEDS aggregates. 2. State provisos like 11.15 require granular data IPEDS was never designed to capture like geo-origin of out-of-state students, athletic status to name a few. 3. The SC General Assembly asks questions about student migration, lottery fund expenditure, and retention patterns that are specific to South Carolina. Christopher Robinson and Mariana Manic(Researchers from CHEMIS mentioned this during their talk including measuring employment outcomes and how higher ed data is driving the economy of the state). It does feel like the real burden lives at the state level where IR offices manage student-level submissions, proviso compliance, scholarship audits, and legislative data requests on top of 12 IPEDS survey components. And every state has its own version of this. #InstitutionalResearch #HigherEd #IPEDS

Do you work with IPEDS data for benchmarking? At the SCAIR Conference David Eubanks presented an insightful session on "Shortcut to IPEDS Data using R." David demonstrated how you can easily access IPEDS data and run longitudinal analysis that helps you make quick decisions - this used to be a weeks-long process. Key takeaways from the session: 1. Efficiency through automation – Using R to consolidate IPEDS, athletics (EADA), accreditation, and earnings data into a single accessible database eliminates manual data wrangling. 2. Predictive insights – The regression analysis showing test scores correlate with retention illustrates how data can inform strategic decisions about student success. 3. Reproducibility matters – Building scripted workflows transforms IR from reactive reporting to proactive benchmarking and strategic planning. 4. Community learning – The weekly Thursday data sessions create space for IR professionals to collaborate and share tools. I have added the reddit community link. The shift from "that will take two weeks" to "let me run this analysis" feels transformative for IR field. David shared all the resources that are needed to get started with IPEDS. He even gave a thumb drive where you can copy all the files to your system to get started. If you are interested to get started, you can find all the info in r/ThIRsdays in reddit. Few questions for IR/IE community, How are you using IPEDS data to drive institutional decision-making? What barriers are you still facing in accessing or analyzing IPEDS data?

A question for IR/IE members from higher education. Imagine you wake up tomorrow with the entire IPEDS data - every variable, every institution, every year is readily available to query and have conversations like chatGPT What would you ask? What would you use it for?

Looking for AEO tools built by indie devs. Please share in comments.

🎃 Spooky fun alert! Just whipped up this interactive Halloween Quiz with @blocksurvey built on the magic of @rive_app for those smooth, eerie animations that make it pop. Drop a comment👻. I'll share the link. #HalloweenQuiz #RiveApp #BlockSurvey