Implementing a Business Intelligence (BI) System in Educational Institutions (Final Documentation)

Abstract

Educational institutions, just like any business enterprise, are concern with controlling costs, increasing revenues, providing high-quality services and excelling the business. Shrinking enrollments, rising costs, greater competition, changing grant, funding and reporting requirements, insufficient in-house manpower and technical expertise in ICT – these are but a few of the challenges that educational institution faces today. Administrators are asking how can we make the decisions that move us from reactive to strategic, from passive to dynamic, from declining to increasing enrollment?

This project’s main objective is to implement a Business Intelligence (BI) System that would organize and translate institutional and academic-related data into useful, understandable, and responsive information.

Business intelligence (BI) is the means by which organizations interpret this sea of data to derive insights that are critical to competing in the new economy: a deeper understanding of learning environment and student achievement relationships, key performance indicators, and a consistent view of the learning environment from the administrative level to the teachers and students on the front lines. By translating these insights into action, institutions can improve student achievement, respond more quickly to students or sub-groups which may be falling behind, and improve accountability by giving everyone an accurate view of the educational environment.

Working on this project, the benefits that I will gain will include further knowledge in implementing a business intelligence system in the educational institutions; gain skills in designing a data warehouse and data mart for this industry sector; and acquire further understanding and experience in designing data models for academic-related business intelligence analysis.

The system development process that will be used for this project is the Business Dimensional Lifecycle consisting of the following activities: Project Planning, Business Requirement Definition/Business Discovery, Technical architecture design, Dimensional Modeling, Physical design, Data staging and development, End-user application specification, End-user application development, Deployment, Maintenance and Growth,

The methods that will be used to develop the project are to conduct design studies unique to this industry, assessing existing alternatives, production of prototype, development of assessment instruments, user evaluation/feedback on the prototype, revision of prototype, and preparation of final project documentation/report.

Project assessment will be done with criteria that may include evaluation for business value, user acceptance, information quality, and sustainability.