Catherine Manly

Catherine Manly

Assistant Professor of Higher Education-Data Analytics
Peter Sammartino School of Education

CONTACT INFORMATION

Courses

• Data Analytics I in Higher Education
• Data Analytics and Visualization
• Research Methods and Design

Research 

• Postsecondary Student Success
• Flexible Educational Design
• Universal Design for Learning
• Online Education
• Support for STEM Success
• Equitable Educational Practice
• Higher Education Finance
• Learning Analytics
• Research Methods
• Subjectivity in Quantitative Methods

Education

• BA, Amherst College
• MBA in Technology Management, University of Phoenix Online
• PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Academic Profile

My research addresses how the flexibility of educational design and delivery can address the under-acknowledged needs of students traditionally underserved by higher education. I determine this by rigorously evaluating practices delivering effective course design for students with a wide range of capacities, including those with and without disabilities. I also investigate administrative and academic support for optimal educational pathways that minimize time to degree given varied student needs. I draw on perspectives from sociology, social justice, educational technology, change management, and leadership. I often use quasi-experimental analysis of atypically large, aggregated datasets facilitated by innovative use of technology that enables evaluating educational practice, and I communicate insight through analytics approaches. My work also clarifies subjective choices in quantitative research since intelligible reporting is needed for equitable research practice.

I did my postdoctoral research with the City University of New York’s Equity Through Education Research Group and have taught online for several institutions in the Northeast. I was formerly Director of Educational Technology and Distance Learning at Manchester Community College and worked in Information Technology at Amherst College. I am an alumna of the Online Learning Consortium’s Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL), EDUCAUSE/CLIR’s Leading Change Institute, and the NSF-funded Learning Analytics in STEM Education Research Institute (LASER). My work has been published in Research in Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, American Behavioral Scientist, Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, and the Journal of Learning Analytics, among other outlets, and may be found on ResearchGate.