Best Practices in Higher Education

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Best Practicesin Higher Education Student Data
Warehousing Forum Northwestern University October
21-22, 2003 FIRST QUESTIONSEmily ThomasStony
Brook University
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First Questions

• What is a data warehouse?
• Why does a college or university need a student
  data warehouse?
• What can a college or university do with a
  student data warehouse?
• What are the dimensions of best practice?
• What, if anything, is different about student
  data warehousing?

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What is a data warehouse?

• A data warehouse is a subject oriented,
  integrated, non-volatile, and time variant
  collection of data in support of managements
  decisions.
• (W.H. Inmon, Building the Data Warehouse)

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What is a data warehouse?

• A data warehouse is a subject oriented,
  integrated, non-volatile, and time variant
  collection of data to describe an organizations
  activities and support of managements decisions.

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What is a data warehouse?

• A data warehouse is a subject oriented,
  integrated, non-volatile, and time variant
  collection of derived data to describe an
  organizations activities and support of
  managements decisions.

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What is a data warehouse?

• A data warehouse is a subject oriented,
  integrated, non-volatile, and time variant
  collection of derived data that are managed and
  institutionally recognized as a shared data
  resource used to describe an organizations
  activities and support of managements decisions.

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What is a data warehouse?

• A data warehouse is a subject oriented,
  integrated, non-volatile, and time variant
  collection of data in support of managements
  decisions.
• (W.H. Inmon, Building the Data Warehouse)
• A data warehouse is a subject oriented,
  integrated, non-volatile, and time variant
  collection of derived data that are managed and
  institutionally recognized as a shared data
  resource used to describe an organizations
  activities and support managements decisions.

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Technical reasons for a data warehouse

• Production system performance
• Reporting performance
• Consistent data definitions
• Explicit data definitions
• Flexibility
• Frozen data
• Access with multiple tools 
• Efficient data storage

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Organizational reasons for a data warehouse

• Organizations need people to understand them.
• For understanding, people need information.
• For information, people need easy access to good
  data.

Information and knowledge are quintessentially
human creations we will never be good at
managing them unless we give people a primary
role. (Thomas Davenport, Information
Ecology)
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Reporting Dimensions

• Who does the reporting?
• What is the reporting objective?
• Are the questions ad hoc or recurring?
• What is the typical output format?
• What is the timing and source of the data?
• What technical skill and tools does the user have?

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Reporting Categories

1. Operations Management
2. Operations Analysis
3. Management/Executive Reporting
4. Management Analysis
5. Analytics

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Dimensions of Best Practice Data Warehouse
Content and Structure

1. What is the content of the data warehouse?
2. What reporting periods are used?
3. What history is included?
4. What is the structure of the data model?
5. How many tables are there?
6. Are facts and dimensions conformed?

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Data Management

1. How are the source data extracted, transformed,
   indexed and loaded?
2. How are warehouse data refreshed?
3. How are warehouse data backed up and recovered?
4. How is data quality maintained?

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Warehouse Management

1. Who manages the warehouse?
2. What staff effort supports it?
3. How was the warehouse designed?
4. How are decisions about changes made and
   implemented?

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Warehouse Use

1. Is the warehouse an institutional resource?
2. Are data marts built from the warehouse?
3. How are warehouse data documented?
4. How is data access facilitated?
5. How is data security maintained?
6. What reporting tools are used?

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What (if anything) is different about student
data warehouses?

• Size small transaction base?
• Period snapshots vs closeouts?
• Longitudinal data especially important?
• Resources limited, but higher education has
  Institutional Research?