HigherEdInfo.org

NCHEMS wanted to provide state policymakers and analysts timely and accurate data and information useful in making sound higher education policy decisions. They envisioned an Information Center as a comprehensive one-stop shop for state-level higher education data and information.

WebFirst developed a dynamic web site that would allow the Information Center staff to dynamically publish statistical and graphical representations of measures. Using vector data from the U.S. Census, WebFirst developed a custom Geographic Information System component to help the Information Center achieve its goals. State and county measures (such as the percentage of undergraduate students who have completed their bachelor's degree) are depicted on a U.S. map with each state color-coded according to quartile rankings.

Dynamically generated bar graphs were also developed to display the same data in a different format. WebFirst also developed an administrator for Information Center staff to easily upload the raw data for each measure. Researchers have the ability to download these raw data sets in Excel or tab-delimited files. In addition, WebFirst developed a "Generate Your Own Map/Data" function for researchers to input and display their own sets of data created externally.