What does UDRC have planned for 2021?

Jeremias Solari, Assistant Director
January 20, 2021

Narrative

It is here, finally, 2021 has arrived at our doorsteps, and with it, the UDRC is looking into this year and planning out what we have in store for those who are kind enough to follow us. We are happy to report that we have much to look forward to, in the form of products and progress. Below is a comprehensive, but not exhaustive, preview of all that will be published or a focus for UDRC in 2021.

Research Products

We have two outstanding research projects being completed in early 2021 that we are very excited about:

The Student Mobility research product looks at the relationship between the geographic location of students, and their ultimate higher education destinations. This research attempts to determine whether or not rurality plays a role in scholastic decisions. The research is complete, and we are currently working on creating a data narrative, look for this product to be published in the first quarter of 2021.

The Gender Wage Gap research looks at the relationship between gender and wages. The innovative aspect of this research conducted by the UDRC is the critical variables that were available to be incorporated (e.g., prior experience, demographics, etc.), and our ability to control for these variables as we investigated the difference through the time of wages earned by the respective genders. This research is nearing completion and has entered the peer review process. Look for a product to be published in the second quarter of 2021.

We leave the public policy implications of these research projects to public policy institutes and hope that they provide context and insight on these two topics.

The UDRC is engaged in several other research projects, which at this time are in the early phases, more to come on these as they proceed.

Cloud Migration

The cloud migration project (which we have discussed in past blog posts in more detail) will be finalized in the last quarter of 2021-additional updates will occur as we progress. This entails the migration of the current UDRC system and its related assets to a cloud-based infrastructure. In addition to retaining the current functionality of the system, we will be expanding its capabilities considerably. Below are some of the key features that will be included in the cloud migration project:

  • Exponential scalability
  • A new, far more sophisticated, matching algorithm
  • Correction process for optimal-at-time matching
  • Superior access points for data partners
  • More powerful analytical toolset for UDRC researchers

At this point, the project is in full swing and we are working on getting the fundamental infrastructure in place, and migrating the import component (getting the data from an external source to our web-based infrastructure).

We are very excited about these upcoming products and projects being completed in 2021 and look forward to providing further updates as they become available and published in future months.

As always, stay safe and have a great 2021.

Thank you!