Celebrating Collaboration: Highlights from Cohort 1 of the Data User Insights Academy

Reflecting on their experience in the Data User Insights Academy over the past nine months, a team of LMI data producers and users from Florida learned that simply making themselves more visible and available to local workforce boards could significantly strengthen engagement. They realized many partners weren’t even aware of the state’s main LMI platform, prompting them to launch new outreach efforts like office hours, site visits, and a user-focused newsletter to bridge the communication gap.

This was just one of many impactful experiences shared by the six teams that participated in the first cohort of the Data User Insights Academy, which concluded in March. During their final meeting, each of the six state teams had the chance to share what they’d learned and accomplished over the nine-month process, as well their plans for continuing their work into the future.

Why the Academy Was Created

The Data User Insights Academy (DUIA) is a unique national effort aimed at bringing labor market information (LMI) data producers and users together to work on a collaborative project to improve data access and use in their state. The Academy process helps break down silos and increase communication across the LMI data ecosystem.

Supported with funding from the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration (ETA), and strategic support/technical assistance from the Labor Market Information Institute (LMI Institute) and Projections Managing Partnership (PMP),  the first Academy cohort focused on building partnerships between state LMI agencies and state/local workforce agencies and boards in six states: Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

Six States, Six Journeys

From developing new data dashboards to launching local engagement strategies and training programs, each state team made incredible progress over the last nine months towards greater alignment, communication, and collaboration. For example, teams from Iowa, Ohio, and Texas each worked on developing new interactive data dashboards closely informed by regular user input. Pennsylvania and North Carolina also began developing training and certification programs to prepare power users and local data champions with best practices for accessing and analyzing LMI. Inspired by North Carolina’s “LMI Tuesdays” program, Florida has rolled out regular LMI “office hours” and is going on the road to try and meet each of its local workforce boards at least once a year.

What Was Learned

Each of the six teams had different goals for working together. However, there were some experiences and lessons that were shared across the group:

• LMI teams quickly learned that many data users in the workforce system weren’t aware of their existing data products and services. As a result, every state has taken new steps to increase outreach and open lines of communication with data users.
• Data users are clamoring for more detailed local data to inform workforce planning but generally weren’t aware of the reasons why some LMI can’t be made publicly available.

The Journey Continues

While this marks the formal end of our first Academy cohort, it is just the beginning of the work being done to improve access and use of LMI nationwide. The LMI Institute and PMP look forward to working with a second cohort focused on alignment between state LMI offices and state educational systems, primarily community colleges. We will also continue to build on the momentum from this first cohort by continuing our Data User Insight Roundtable webinar series, as well as producing tip sheets and training opportunities inspired by the Academy’s success. Keep an eye out for more information and announcements from the Data User Insights project on our website:

https://www.lmiontheweb.org/data-user-insights/

If you have any questions or want to learn more about the Data User Insights project, please contact Plumlee at tplumlee@crec.net.