The design of data systems within education can be challenging due to a lack of easily accessible information and a large variety of stakeholders with differing needs. Architecting Academic Intelligence is the process of centralizing and making accessible the student administrative information to the every member of the administration, faculty and staff of the City Colleges of Chicago so as to more efficiently promote student success.

1. Architecting
Academic Intelligence

2. Brendan Aldrich
Executive Director, Data Warehouse
raldrich2@ccc.edu
Brendan has been building and leading innovative business
intelligence, data warehouse and analytics teams for over
12 years at companies like the Walt Disney Company,
Traveler’s Insurance and Demand Media.
Nancy Chavez
Project Team Leader, Center for Operational Excellence
nchavez40@ccc.edu
With a deep background in strategic planning in Education,
Nancy joins the team from Chicago Public Schools (CPS)
where she led projects around strategy, research & analytics.
Janice Dantes
Sr. Research Associate, Reinvention Team
jdantes@ccc.edu
A new member of the Reinvention team, Janice has
over six years experience at City Colleges
working directly with data as a member of
the Research and Evaluation team.

3. The Reinvention Portfolio
Readiness
CPS Collaboration
Initiatives
• The business
Developmental
Occupational intelligence program
Education College to Careers is included within
Bridge Programs the Reinvention
focus on “Efficiency
Transfer
Adult Education & Effectiveness”.
Transfer Academy
Gateway to CCC
Enhanced Off-site
management
Student Services
Efficiency & Effectiveness

4. Where are we now?
• WE MUST ENSURE…
that our students are successful, our faculty and staff are empowered and
our administrators are well-informed.
• WE NEED TO OVERCOME…
common data problems such as inconsistent definitions (“Home College”),
delays in obtaining data and an inability to easily perform cross-platform
analysis (i.e. PeopleSoft SA, Finance and HR)… which creates a lack of faith.
• WE SHALL BUILD…
and deploy a business intelligence solution that will allow us to measure
ourselves accurately and derive meaningful insights.
• The first phase, involving our student data, will be focused
on academic intelligence.

5. BI and Academic Intelligence
• Business Intelligence (The Platform)
A data management platform consisting of an organized
collection of data, databases and reporting tools to help
an institution synthesize information, derive meaningful
insights and facilitate data-driven decision making.
• Academic Intelligence (The Data):
The processes of changing student data into information,
information into knowledge and knowledge into the plans
that facilitate student success.
Empowering Academia via the access to and use of data.

6. BI… is this like PeopleSoft?
Peoplesoft is used to RUN the organization.
The Data Warehouse will be used to OPTIMIZE our capabilities.
• PeopleSoft • Data Warehouse
– Used to run the business – Used to analyze the business
– Application oriented – Subject oriented
– Detailed data – Summarized and refined data
– Isolated data – Integrated data
– Fewer records accessed – Large volumes accessed
(tens) (millions)

7. Data Integration is Key
• One of the key benefits of a data warehouse is the ability to integrate a
variety of data sources into a unified data set.
• This provides the ability to gain new insights from the data above and beyond
what can be gleaned from a single system and allows us to build a culture of
data.

8. Some Guiding Principles
• Build a Data Democracy
• Create a Culture of Data
• Collaborate Continuously

9. Build a Data Democracy
• The right data must be available at all
levels within the organization.
• Access to and use of data will create
positive and lasting change.
• All City Colleges of Chicago employees
will be able to use this platform to
obtain data and/or run reports.

10. Create a Culture of Data
• Having well-architected data platforms
allows us to evolve the kinds of
questions that we can ask of Data Driven
ourselves and promote Decision-Making
data driven decision- Strategic
• What is the effectiveness
making Analysis of what we’re doing and
• What should how do we improve?
Operational happen?
Reporting • “How do these students
• What has • “How should the do compared to general
happened? students be doing?” population?”
Basic Needs
• “Who was
• What is registered and
happening? how did they
do over time?”
• “Who is
registered and
where should
they be?”

11. Collaborate Continuously

12. Turning Data into Knowledge
• Administrative Intelligence
• Research Intelligence
• Faculty & Advisor Intelligence

13. Administrative Intelligence
• Comprehensive Scorecards
– Including agreed upon KPI’s and
drill-downs to underlying metrics.
• Enrollment Reporting
– Track daily enrollment across
courses, departments, colleges…
even time of day (day vs. evening)
and demographics!
• Completion Reporting
– Clearly identify students who are
on track, nearing completion and
recently completed or transferred.

14. Research Intelligence
• Dynamic Queries
– Interactive access to potentially
millions of different research
intelligence queries.
• Course Success and Cohorts
– Evaluate course success by
division, time to degree
(normalized by degree type) and
graduation / retention by cohort.
• Enrollment Geospatial Analytics
– Align student population data with
US Census tract data for the city of
Chicago.

15. Faculty & Advisor Intelligence
• Course Success and Retention
– Incoming student assessment (COMPASS),
checking pre-requisites, success in
successive courses, program and
knowledge retention.
• Academic Progress Reports
– Measurement of student achievement
towards academic and program goals.
• Remediation Analysis
– Compare to non-remediated success,
retention, time to complete and
graduation with gateway and subsequent
college course performance.

16. Getting from here to there
• In Progress
– Selecting a Vendor Partner
– Academic Intelligence Roadshow
– Throwing Darts

17. Finding a Vendor Partner
• The City Colleges of Chicago evaluated solutions from a variety of vendors
based on an extensive set of evaluation criteria:
— Metrics and Reports — Data Compatibility and Integration
— Visualizations and Advanced Reporting — Analysis
— Analytics — Technical Development
— Data Warehouse — Project Management
— ETL Functions — Cost

18. Zogo Technologies, Inc.
• A data technology services company exclusively
working in higher education.
• Has deployed data solutions to 50 community
colleges across the country (and several in
Illinois). Clients include:
– The Dallas County Community College District
– Southwest Texas Junior College
– The College of Lake County
– Lincoln Land Community College
• A wealth of experience that is directly applicable
to our needs.

19. Identified Stakeholder Groups
10/01 – 12/31: Meet with key groups to discuss program and discuss data
needs and issues. Identify resource(s) to provide detailed requirements.
– Academic Affairs – Executive Directors
– Assessment Committees – Faculty Councils
– Associate Vice Chancellors – Finance
– Board of Trustees – Human Resources
– Business Directors – OIT
– College Advisors – Presidents
– Deans of Adult Education – Registrars
– Deans of Careers – Research and Evaluation
– Deans of Instruction – Vice Chancellors
– Deans of Student Services – Vice Presidents
– Department Chairs
– Directors of Financial Aid

20. Phase 1: Academic Intelligence
• End Calendar Year (December 2012)
• Infrastructure setup and first PeopleSoft SA
data being loaded to begin testing cycles.
• Determine schedule for future phases
(additional data sources: Finance, HR,
Blackboard, GradesFirst).
• End of Academic Year (April/May 2013)
• Deep data cleansing and corroboration of
historical data (2005 forward).
• Report suite development and validation
• Full platform testing
• May 2013
• BI Platform Launch and Training Rollout.

21. Can I ask you a few Questions?
• Data Needs Survey
– Please complete a brief survey
regarding your current data uses,
needs and challenges.
– Identify one or more individuals from
your area with whom we can work.
– We’ll follow-up with your identified
resources for more detailed
requirements and ensure they’re in
the loop with all of our latest
progress updates.

22. Questions?

23. Thank you!