Get to Know Our Community: Shiloh Fling
Name: Shiloh Fling
Title: Coordinator of Online Education Analytics
Organization: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Can you describe your current role in institutional research and how it supports your institution’s mission?
My current title is Coordinator of Online Education Analytics. My primary role involves researching our online students, but I also help with automating and streamlining IPEDS, PDP, Common Data Set, and all the other typical surveys.
What sparked your interest in institutional research, and how has your career evolved since then?
I started in IR as a work study student while in college at Webster University where I developed some Shiny dashboards in R. I didn’t even realize it was a whole field until I got my first IR role at UNLV. Nowadays, my focus is around developing dashboards in our business intelligence tool, data literacy, and automating the boring stuff.
What’s one project or accomplishment in your IR work that you’re especially proud of—and why?
The project I’m the most proud of is when I collaborated with Alison Lanski from the University of Notre Dame to develop the IPEDSuploadables R package! This package helped our offices (and many others) to automate their IPEDS reporting. It was so rewarding to work with someone outside of my institution to solve a common problem.
What do you find most rewarding (or enjoyable) about working in IR?
The most rewarding part of my role is working with non-technical stakeholders to understand what problems they are trying to solve and how we can use data to solve them. It excites me when I can use data to help make the student experience better.
When you’re not working with data, how do you like to spend your time?
In my free time, I love crafting and creating art. My main craft is crocheting, but I also like to use my sewing machine and Cricut to create custom clothes and accessories.
What’s something about you—personal or professional—that might surprise your colleagues?
Something that might surprise my colleagues is that I was 3 months old the first time I ever flew in an airplane! My mom is from the Philippines and wanted to take me home to meet her family.