The Transition from Accountability pdf ’s to a Business Intelligence Suite within the University of Texas System

November 2012

Office of Strategic Initiatives

Dr. Alicia Betsinger, Assistant Director for Strategic Initiatives

Annette Royal, Business Intelligence Research Analyst

Jennifer Carnes Whitman, Systems Analyst

UT System is a public institution of higher education and is prohibited by law and regulations from endorsing commercial vendors.  This presentation is a demonstration of a UT System Electronic Accountability System.  Any mention of a specific commercial vendor is not an endorsement by UT System and is for informational purposes only.

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• 15 institutions 9 academic institutions

6 health institutions

• 214,861 students (Fall 2011) 74% undergraduate

40% Hispanic

• 46,094 degrees/certificates awarded (AY 2011) 66% undergraduate

~35% of degrees awarded by public universities in Texas

~63% of degrees awarded by public health-related institutions in Texas

• 19,099 faculty, including 7,621 T/TT faculty

• $2.54 billion in research expenditures (FY 2011) 54% federally funded

65% by the health-related institutions

• $13.1 billion in budgeted expenses (FY 2012)

• $17.6 billion in endowments (FY 2011)

UT System By the Numbers

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• Board of Regents

• Chancellor

• State and national trends

• Calls for increased transparency and accountability

• Calls to demonstrate productivity, efficiency, and

impact

• Increases in requests from internal and external

constituents for more data

• Desire to streamline and automate office operations

Driving Forces

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• Framework for Advancing Excellence adopted in

May 2011.

• Framework Action Plan adopted in August 2011.

1. Undergraduate Student Access & Success

2. Faculty/Administrators/Staff Excellence

3. Research

4. Productivity and Efficiency

Framework for Advancing Excellence

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• Framework Action Plan continued.

5. Strategic Information Technology Infrastructure Investments

6. Enhance Philanthropic Success

7. Ph.D. Programs

8. The Health of Texas

9. Expanding Educational and Health Opportunities in

South Texas

Framework for Advancing Excellence (cont.)

The action plan prioritized the creation of an interactive data warehouse that

would support the management of the UT System and its institutions.

The Dashboard will support the Framework by providing an accessible,

customizable tool for monitoring institutional performance and progress

towards goals related to the nine areas in the action plan.

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• Purpose: Many Transparency, Accountability

Management Tool

“Fact Book”

Streamline Data Collection/Distribution Process

• Audience: Everyone Internal leadership and staff; campus leadership and staff; government;

private industry; media

Unchallenged Public Access for almost every data point.

Although available as context, this is NOT intended as a primary source of

information for perspective students or their parents

Dashboard Overview

Technical

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• Data Sources IPEDS THECB NSF System and Institutional submissions Other federal and state

• Data Structure Star Schema with slowly changing dimensions.

Data

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• Three separate SAS environments DEV (development)

TEST

PROD (production)

Three environments ensure security and facilitate• extracting / cleaning data

• developing reports

• pushing data and reports to internal/external users

Promotion Workflow

Server Environments

DEV TEST PROD

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Server Environments

Purpose Server Structure Public AccessUnit Record Level Data

DEV Extraction, Transformation and Load (ETL) processes; De-identification of datasets for promotion; initial staging ground for developing reports, dashboards, and portals; work promoted to TEST for review

1 virtual server No Strictly Limited – small number of analysts in the office

Yes. ID information only available to a very limited subset of staff

TEST Cleaned datasets; place to develop and run reports & analysis; review reports & dashboards for promotion to PROD

3 dedicated virtual servers: JBOSS web server, metadata server, application server

No Limited – office staff and internal users only

Yes. De-identified

PROD Cleaned datasets; finalized reports & dashboards

3 dedicated virtual servers: JBOSS web server, metadata server, application server

Yes Open – public access Login (single sign on) – authenticated secure access for authorized users w/ role-based permissions

Yes. De-identified

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Server Environments

• Virtualized server environment (Vmware)• 7 virtual machines running 3 Business

Intelligence environments 

 

 

PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT

 

 

Metadata Server

WEB Server (JBOSS)

Application Server

Development Environment

Web, Metadata & Application Servers

WEB Server (JBOSS)

Metadata Server

Application Server

 

 

 

TEST ENVIRONMENT

 

 

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Server Environments• Data Storage

Each environment has a Network Attached Storage Device with 150 GB

Current projections for storage are for 15 GB of data for each academic year

• Security During implementation, conducted scan for potential security

threats Threats were addressed on a case-by-case basis to mitigate risk Reverse proxy server InCommon Secure Socket Layer certificate for additional

encryption and security Shibboleth will allow single sign-on capability across

organizational boundaries

Dashboard Demo

data.utsystem.edu

Dashboard Expansion: Beyond the Core Indicators

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1) Document processes as you go along, especially those that are executed regularly

2) Create a security model for OS and application permission

3) Ensure that big picture is translated into the appropriate detailed steps

4) Participate in training at the optimal point in your process. Too early is ineffective!

Lessons Learned…So Far

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5) Accept that you will never have enough time

6) Understand that data warehouse is built for end-user rather than technical user

7) Accept that there will be intermediate steps needed between your data warehouse and analyst end users

8) Anticipate mid-course adjustments on weekly, if not daily, basis

Lessons Learned…So Far (cont.)

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Conclusion: The Benefits

• Easy Access to Information• Ability to Access Multiple Years of

Historical Data• Standardization of Data Across a Large

Higher Education System• Ability to Answer Complex Questions• Transparency Results in Better Outcomes

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• Alicia Betsinger, Assistant Director abetsinger@utsystem.edu

• Annette Royal, BI Research Analyst aroyal@utsystem.edu

• Jennifer Whitman, Systems Analyst jwhitman@utsystem.edu

data.utsystem.edu

Questions?