WebCT Vista PowerLinks Reporting Interfaces

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WebCT VistaPowerLinks Reporting Interfaces

• John Hallett
• Senior Product Manager
• WebCT, Inc.
• John.Hallett_at_WebCT.com

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Overview

• WebCT contains vast amounts of data
• Prior to WebCT Vista, this data was stored in a
  distributed, flat file database
• This made correlation and detailed data analysis
  almost impossible

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Overview

• WebCT Vista introduced an SQL database server
• With that, detailed analysis became possible, but
  there was still a problem

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Overview

• The Vista data schema is not exactly intuitive
• The DB is designed for functionality and
  performance, not for data extraction
• Relevant information can be spread out among
  many, many tables
• And the table schema can change from version to
  version

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Overview

• The Vista Reporting Interfaces solve these
  problems by abstracting away from direct DB
  access
• The result is a set of safe database views
  containing the most relevant data all in one place

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Why is this important?
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Details

• The Vista Reporting Interfaces provide seven
  tables
• 5 are live views, 2 are extracts

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Details

• RPT_PERSON
• Contains information on users
• IDs (Login, person, and IMS)
• Name (First, last, prefix, suffix)
• Active/Inactive flag

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Details

• RPT_LEARNING_CONTEXT
• Contains information on LCs (E.g. Course)
• IDs (LC, Parent and IMS)
• Name, type, of childern
• Start/end dates, last archived date, templates
• of members, path

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Details

• RPT_LEARNING_CONTEXT_SIZE
• Adds up data size in a given LC
• ID
• Size of templates
• Size of non-template files

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Details

• RPT_MEMBER
• Contains information on memberships
  (enrollments)
• Three columns Person, LC, Role

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Details

• RPT_TEMPLATE
• Contains information on template contents
• ID
• Counts of all major Learning Objects in use
  (quiz, questions, assignments, discussions, etc)

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Details

• RPT_TRACKING
• All tracked events
• User, LC, event type, time, dwell time, target
  name
• This can be a very large table
• Unlike the tracking tool itself, tracked events
  are not filtered by role (so it is possible to
  see designer actions)

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Details

• RPT_GRADEBOOK
• All grades, every student, every course
• Calculated columns are presented as a formula

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Details

• RPT_TEMPLATE and RPT_LEARNING_CONTEXT_SIZE are
  extracts, and must be scheduled via the UI

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Details
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It all comes together
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It all comes together
Vista Enrollment by Department
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It all comes together
Vista Tool Usage by Department
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It all comes together
Average Final Grade vs Vista Sessions
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Questions?
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Thank you

• For more info, please contact me
• John Hallett
• Senior Product Manager
• WebCT, Inc
• John.Hallett_at_WebCT.com