Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Business Intelligence
Mining Data To Find Gold
7/5/2007
"You can de-construct the data down to the components that make it up," El-Haggan said. That, in turn, helps administrators understand what factors are influencing the data, "so they can make an intelligent decisions."
More than 100 users at Coppin State currently use iStrategy; each module, which is purchased separately, has specific users. Using a module developed specifically with iStrategy, the university is now examining help desk calls to see who is calling, with what problems, and what sort of service they are receiving. "We know we get a lot of calls," Doddanna said, "but what does that mean? This is a way to quantify those calls" to evaluate just how much the support service is costing, for example. Entering call data into an iStrategy module allows the IT group to analyze calls. "We can slice and dice data," Doddanna explained, "to see which department we are servicing, how many calls we're getting" and other factors.
That indicates whether the IT department is meeting its service level agreements, as well as the level of satisfaction among customers--Coppin State's students. "If I notice [a potential] problem area in a report," Doddanna said, "I can click down on that area and see who the technician is and what happened."
In terms of return on investment, El-Haggan cited the university's efforts to meet the complex requirements of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). "Schools much bigger than us have either failed the assessment part of the standard or had to postpone the NCATE visit," El-Haggan said proudly. Using iStrategy coupled with Peoplesoft, the university was able to create a special module for assessing the many rubrics and standards in NCATE. "We got accredited with flying colors," El-Haggan said, "and with a high commendation," unusual for a school of their size.
Read More:
Linda L. Briggs is a freelance writer based in San Diego, Calif.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Yuba Community College District Renews with AT&T for Wireless
Yuba Community College District (YCCD) has contracted with AT&T to provide wireless Internet access to the 11,000 students attending the district's two Northern California colleges, Yuba College in Marysville and Woodland Community College.
- Surveys Raise Doubts on Virtualization Security
Migration to virtualization won't be the quick transition that some technology evangelists have predicted, according to recent surveys by two IT security companies. Nor is virtualization as secure as many might want it to be.
- What Was Your First Pet's Name? Lessons Learned About E-Mail Security
The intrusion last month into Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail highlighted the frailty of some types of data security measures. What are the lessons for the rest of us?
- Report Casts Doubt on Anti-terrorism Tools
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences, part of which was co-authored by an Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington professor, casts doubt on the effectiveness, lawfulness, and appropriateness of using data-based tools such as data-mining and biometrics to fight terrorism.
- University in South Africa Set To Install Quantum Cryptography on Municipal Network
Physicists at South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal are set to install a quantum communication security solution over the eThekwini Municipality fibre-optic network infrastructure in Durban.
- Cedarville U Sets Up SonicWall Firewalls
Cedarville University in southwestern Ohio has implemented SonicWALL firewalls to provide high-speed gateway firewall protection for its 3,000 students.
