Project Title: UC InfoCenter
Submitter:
Al Course, Data Services Manager, UCOP, Albert.Course@ucop.edu
Phone (510) 987-0761
Project Leads: Ola Popoola, Analytics Content Manager, IRAP
Shaloo Jeswani, Business Intelligence Manager, ITS
Charles Masten, Director Institutional Research & Academic Planning
Team Members:
Institutional Research & Academic Planning
Data Services, Information Technology Services
Communications, Vance Tran and Matt Glass
The story of the University of California is often clouded by national debate questioning the
value of a college degree, the affordability of a degree, unmanageable student debt, and poor
student outcomes. University leadership and the public at large need quick, clear and easy
access to information to support communication and advocacy efforts. To meet this need,
Institutional Research & Academic Planning (IRAP) is collaborating with Communications,
Information Technology Support (ITS), other UCOP units and campuses on the development of
a brand new Information Center (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter). The
Information Center website will be aligned with the University of California website.
Here is a link to an article in the UCLA Daily Bruin on April 9th, 2015 about UC InfoCenter.
http://dailybruin.com/2015/04/09/arthur-wang-new-uc-info-center-offers-transparency-incollege-admissions/
THE UC INFORMATION CENTER
The Information Center has four components:
• UC Storyboards provide data-driven narratives that weave multiple data
visualizations into one story.
• UC Dashboards provide key facts and an ability to explore information on a
particular subject area.
• UC Data Tables provide static and interactive data that can be downloaded.
• UC Information Center Data Warehouse
The Information Center works on desktops, tablets and cell phones. There are also links on the
site to facts sheets and UC data assigned to legislative maps.
Current story boards include:
• UC remains affordable for undergraduates
• UC undergraduate alumni outcomes
• UC’s commitment to social mobility
• UC enrolls a diverse pool of undergraduates
• UC STEM degree pipeline
• UC doctoral alumni survey
• UC undergraduate students research expectations, experience and aspirations
• Research sponsorship at UC
• UC prepares diverse California K-12 students for college
• UC revenue and enrollment trends
• UC staff workforce diversity
Current dashboards include:
• UC quick facts at a glance
• Freshman admissions summary
• Transfer admissions summary
• Fall enrollment at a glance
• Degrees awarded at a glance
• California Community College enrollments at UC
• Faculty new-hire origin (1998-2013)
• Diversity of UC’s faculty and academic appointees
Current data tables include:
• Admissions by school source
• Fall enrollment headcounts
• Degrees awarded data
• Personnel data
• Revenues and expense data
There were over 15,000 views of these pages in the first month.
How does it work?
UCOP receives data from many different sources including campus student, financial and payroll data.
In addition there are external source like EDD and the National Student Clearing House, this data is
scrubbed and loaded into the InfoCenter Data Warehouse. The UCOP Data Services team uses IBM’s
DataStage to transform and load the data based on specific business rules. The underlying database is
DB2 with star schema database design. Specialized Data marts were created to answer the most
common questions.
The Institutional Research & Academic Planning Analyst would then determine the type of data
visualization and the data required. The analyst could query the data warehouse with tools like SAS to
develop the data set specific to the reports, in addition the analyst could use data from other systems or
even from spreadsheets. Using Tableau Desktop the analysts were able to build interactive data
visualizations to the “Story of UC”. These visualizations are published to the Tableau Public server
(cloud based solution) and accessed through the University of California web site
(http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter).
Timeframe - The proposal for the UC InfoCenter was first introduce in July 2014. The Beta testing of the
UC InfoCenter began in December 2014 with a public launch in March 2015.
Innovation – The UC InfoCenter and underlying infrastructure has given UC a platform to quickly tell our
story through interactive data visualizations. This allows IRAP to quickly respond to Media Stories and
internal request for information with easy and without ITS support.
Subsequent phases will be rolled out as more data is migrated to the UC InfoCenter Data Warehouse.
Data content areas that will be migrated include Financial Aid, Graduate Admissions and Contracts and
Grants.
SAMPLE VISUALIZATIONS
UC Affordability Storyboard – how affordable is a UC degree?
Community College Transfer Enrollments Dashboard – which community colleges do our transfer
students come from?
UC Degrees at a Glance Dashboard
UC Fall Enrollment Data Tables