BI Community of Practice
Minutes for 8/12/2015
Location
Video Conference
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Jay Eckles (co-chair)
Dennis Hengstler (co-chair)
Mozhgan Shahidi (scribe)
Ron Loewen (Resources subcommittee chair)
Ed Johnson (Tools subcommittee chair)
Denise Haley (Training & Support subcommittee chair)
Allen Dupont (Policy, Standards, and Definitions subcommittee chair)
Denise Gardner
Kriss Gabourel
Mike Ebbs
Jeanne Hermann
Shawn Bryan
Kristen Noblit
Desiree McCullough
Steven Robertson
Les Mathews
Cyndie Nichols
Scott Gordy
Janice Hodge
John Toman
Connie Grove (substitute for Mark Savage)
Absent
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Mark Savage (substitute present)
Lisa Ford
Tom Hoover
Agenda
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V.
Introduction of new CoP member (2 min)
Refresh of committee purpose (5 min)
Review of subcommittee assignment results (38 min)
Review of plan (5 min)
Discussion of next steps (10 min)
Minutes
Jay Eckles called the meeting to order at approximately 10:05 AM.
Introduction of new CoP member
Dr. Eckles introduced new member Cyndie Nichols, CBO for AgResearch.
Refresh of committee purpose
Dr. Eckles reviewed with the committee the original charge for the BI Community of Practice. Dennis
Hengstler provided additional comments regarding the focus and structure of the committee.
Review of subcommittee assignment results
Ed Johnson reported on the results of the Tools subcommittee's analysis of current state. A spreadsheet
inventorying major market tools is partially complete. The list of tools is reasonably complete, but
additional work still needs to be done to correctly identify tools that are in the UT portfolio today and to
correctly identify the various features of each tool. The committee members were asked to look at this
spreadsheet to determine if other columns or rows should be added. Three records were added as were
columns for three additional requirements. Mr. Johnson described his general findings: across the state,
there are not a lot of areas using specialized BI reporting software or processes. Among the few that do
use such tools and processes are UTSA's use of IRIS BW, UTK's construction of a student data warehouse
based on Banner ODS, and UTSA IR and IT's construction of a student repository for THEC reporting.
Additionally, UT Foundation is using Advizor, a data visualization tool. UTIA was using Tableau but those
licenses expired earlier this summer. UTC uses Tableau Enterprise.
Mr. Johnson indicated discussions moved into questions of requirements. In order of importance, his
team has identified 1. Ease of use for both consumers of reporting and technical staff; 2. Visualization of
operational data; 3. Ability to present graphical representation in form of a dashboard; 4. general
analytics including drill down and discovery; 5. predictive capabilities.
Denise Haley reported on the results of the Training & Support subcommittee's analysis of current state.
Ms. Haley displayed a spreadsheet showing an inventory of training and support practices across each
campus and institute as they relate to BI tools and tasks. An important lesson from this exercise is that
many people were unaware of available training. Support available currently includes only basic help
like getting online and downloading software. A major training resources is available only to UTK and
UTHSC and is not available to UTC or UTM. Types of training included some live in person courses, a lot
of elearning, and documentation.
Ron Loewen reported on the results of the Resources subcommittee's analysis of current state. Mr.
Loewen displayed a spreadsheet showing an inventory of human resources and hardware resources
currently deployed to business intelligence within UTSA. Once strategy and tools going forward are
better defined, it will be possible to be more specific on what resources are available. Once we do this
for UTSA, the subcommittee will reach out to campuses through Community of Practice representatives,
CIOs, or both to ask for similar data.
Allen Dupont reported on the results of the Policy, Standards, & Definitions subcommittee. Dr. Dupont
began by offering apologies for not getting as much done as other subcommittees. The subcommittee
collected examples of data dictionaries from each campus and system; the consensus regarding most
was that they are out of date and need updating and modernization. Most of these dictionaries focused
on student data. The team concluded that there is very little policy at the system level, though
individual units may have policy. A major policy issue identified for future analysis is the difference in
the way student data is handled (primarily controlled at the campus level) versus financial and HR data
(primarily controlled at the system level). The first policy idea is making sure campuses can get easier
access to their own data.
Dr. Dupont discussed data stewardship. The data steward role is not very formalized. There should be a
difference between who "owns" and who "accesses" data.
Review of Plan and Discussion of next steps
Dr. Eckles reviewed the Community of Practice's project plan, and the Community members agreed that
the plan is currently on schedule and requires no adjustments at this time. The next steps in the plan
are to identify stakeholders from whom we should solicit input, to develop and deliver a survey to
collect that input, and to begin the requirements gathering process. A survey will be posted on the
sharepoint site and distributed to Community members for the purposes of collecting names and email
addresses of stakeholders.
Dr. Eckles adjourned the meeting at approximately 11:05 AM.