UF’s Office for Strategic Initiatives partnered with Hanover to systematize its academic program development process with market analysis.
UF’s Office for Strategic Initiatives partnered with Hanover to systematize its academic program development process with market analysis.
The University of Florida’s Office for Strategic Initiatives (OSI) is dedicated to organizational innovation across the institution. With growing demands for comprehensive and timely market data to inform its academic programs, OSI leaders wanted to improve the process for conducting academic program market analysis. The office partnered with Hanover Research to tap into streamlined data and research tools that could determine the viability of new and existing degree programs.
Many of UF’s academic programs require market analysis before they can launch. However, that work was often left to faculty or administrators who weren’t trained in market research or delegated to costly consultants when funds were available. This led to an inconsistent market analysis product that lacked the depth to effectively drive decision-making processes.
OSI saw an opportunity to improve and streamline this process through its partnership with Hanover Research. Hanover would not only provide UF with new academic program data tools but also offer deep program portfolio expertise and recommendations based on the results of those datasets.
Hanover’s Academic Assessment Suite provided a one-stop platform that allowed OSI leaders to easily explore their existing academic program data and growth trends, uncover potential high-growth programs, and access detailed data related to the viability of specific proposals.
The dashboards and data visualization tools allow users to dynamically investigate a variety of market factors for any program area, without each department having to rely on different external consultants or time-intensive university resources to understand data related to:
Moreover, Hanover’s team worked closely with OSI to ensure the suite was customized to include all the data the university needed to consider and helped them interpret the data to provide rich program-level recommendations and considerations.
“At the University of Florida, we are required to complete a market analysis for most new academic programs to justify their creation and funding. Before Hanover built our dashboards, the only way we could get that kind of market analysis was by piecing it together ourselves, which was very time consuming.”
—Jonathan Orsini, PhD, Director of Operations, Office for Strategic Initiatives
Learn how to conduct a transparent, data-driven process that will help your institution make sound program decisions with our Step-by-Step Guide to Academic Portfolio Review.
Hanover’s academic program development guidance enabled OSI leaders to:
With the right tools and support in place, the Office for Strategic Initiatives enhanced its ability to make informed, data-driven decisions about new academic programs that align with a rapidly changing market.
Looking forward, the Office for Strategic Initiatives will continue to develop the university’s data analysis capabilities, and the dashboard features available through its partnership with Hanover Research.
“The combination of the program assessment dashboard and Hanover’s expertise is insightful. Having multiple tools at our disposal makes our market analysis process easier and faster so we can make more informed decisions.”
—Jonathan Orsini, PhD, Director of Operations, Office for Strategic Initiatives
The total number of enrolled students
The number of academic colleges and centers
The number of undergraduate and graduate degrees
The number of AI-related courses offered across the university
University of Florida Office for Strategic Initiatives
Public four-year university
Gainesville, Florida
Create a streamlined and sustainable approach to academic program review