5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
April 28 – 30, 2008
Hyatt Regency Washington
on Capitol Hill
www.PESC.org
The Application of BI in Higher Education
John Van Weeren, Product Manager, Datatel, Inc.
Journey to a Culture of Evidence
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Operational Effectiveness
Admissions Office
“In preparation for my 9:00 a.m. meeting, I need an
up-to-the-minute count of prospects who have been
accepted at our institution for the fall 2008 starting
class.”
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Process Effectiveness
Admissions Office
“As the new VP of Enrollment Management, I need to
measure our success in preparing an offer to a qualified
prospect from the time they were targeted to the time the
offer letter was sent.”
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Institutional Effectiveness
Admissions Office
“Based on our history, where should the student
characteristics be at this point in time to ensure that we are
on target to meet our shaping goals.
So, I need a count of Admit students 30 days after posting
our acceptance letters for 2007, 2006, and 2005.”
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5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
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Other Uses of BI
Targeting prospects to improve yield
Optimizing admissions offers
Retention and Intervention
Course offering planning
Optimizing returning student FA awards
Targeting alumni giving
Wealth screening
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5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
b
Status
Metric
Gauge
KPI
New Students Enrolled
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What Are The Tools & Infrastructure?
Operational
Effectiveness
Process
Effectiveness
Institutional
Effectiveness
ERP System Reports
Microsoft Desktop Tools (Excel, Access, etc.)
FRx, Reporting Services
Reporting
Reports
Crystal Reports
Microsoft
Analysis Services, ProClarity
Performance Point
Cognos 8
Analysis
Dashbaording & Scorecarding
Oracle
Discoverer
Enterprise Performance Mgmt
Business Objects
Web Intelligence
Xcelcius, Dashboard Builder
Performance Management
iStrategy HigherEd Analytics -- ZogoTech – Data Warehousing
SAS – SPSS - KXEN
Increasing Value
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What Is The Primary Data Source?
ERP
Transaction Table
Views
Operational Data Store and Independent Data Marts
Other Transaction
System Data
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Data Warehouse
5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
What is an ODS?
• A separate repository of data from one or
more source transaction systems
• Data organized for general reporting
needs
• Level of detail is same as the source
transaction systems
• Updated on a regular interval
• Staging area for data warehouse
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5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
What is a Data Mart?
• A separate repository of data from one or
more source transaction systems
• Data organized to answer specific
business questions in one subject area
• Level of detail may be summarized
• Updated on a regular interval
• Often considered as or part of a data
warehouse
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5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
What is a Data Warehouse?
• Kimball – “A copy of transaction data
specifically structured for query and
analysis.”
• Inmon – “… is a subject oriented,
integrated, time-variant, and non-volatile
collection of data in support of
management and the decision making
process.”
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5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
Dimensional Data Model
Star Schema Design
Dimension
Dimension
Dimension
Dimension
Fact Table
Dimension
Dimension
Measures
Dimension
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Dimension
Keys
Secondary
Information
Dimension
5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
Dimensions
Admissions:
Application Method
Applicant Home State
Prior Applicant Ind.
Applicant Fin Aid Interest
Applicant Housing Interest
Recruiting Category
Applicant Status
Admit Category
Applicant SAT Band
Applicant HS GPA Band
Applicant Age Band
Faculty Attributes:
Faculty
Faculty Rank
Highest Education Level
Tenured Status
Graduates:
Graduated Indicator
Degree
Years to Graduate
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Example Content
Fact Areas
Admissions
Student
Term
Class
Schedule
Class
Registration
Faculty
Term
Graduates
Student
Financials
Dimensions
Institutional:
Term
Career/Plan
Academic Department
Student Term:
Academic Level
Academic Standing
Cohort/Cohort Type
Student Term Status
FT/PT; Credit Hour Band
Class/Grade:
Subject/Class
Course Level
Class Type
Grade
GPA Band
Student Attributes:
Student
Student Citizenship
Student Ethnicity
Student Gender
Student Geography
Student Age Band
5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
Multi-dimensional Cubes
Location
Term
Ethnicity Age Band
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5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
Benefits of this Approach
• Flexible organization of data for reporting
• Best Performance
– Few joins to get related data
– Fast indexing
– Aggregations done during ETL, not query
• Efficient and easy to understand
– Facts are in one place, not repeated
– Dimensions are reusable with other facts
– Accurately represents real life activity
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th Annual Conference
5
… A lot of times people don’t know
on Technology
& you show them.
what
they want until
Standards
- Steve Jobs
Making it Real
5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
Related Standards
• Data definition
– PESC: Core, and all component definitions
– College Board: Common Data Set
• Data modeling
– CWM (Common Warehouse Model)
– BPQL (business process query language)
– PMML (predictive modeling markup language)
– XFRML (extensible financial reporting markup language)
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5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
Challenges in HE
Funding
Infrastructure
Data Definition
Business Analysts
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5th Annual Conference
Success
depends
on
Technology
& upon previous preparation,
and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.
Standards
- Confucius
Summary for Success
5th Annual Conference
on Technology &
Standards
Questions?
Be sure to fill out the survey
Thank You!
jvw@datatel.com
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