University Business - August 2007 - (Page 72)

investments. Putting reporting into the context of business intelligence has helped to tie together seemingly disparate departments like human resources and accounts payable, but many IHEs still have miles to go before they have the types of systems they want. Challenges include the use of multiple reporting systems and applications, including legacy systems, says Atkinson. Also, moving reporting from IT to multiple departments can be a tricky endeavor that not only creates a strain on support and training but sometimes goes against the culture of a university. “Historically, IT has been the source of all reporting,” Atkinson notes. “IT is now trying to push that out to users with tools like Cognos, but my experience has been that the big bang, datawarehouse-to-everyone approach where everyone has access to a lot of information has not been overly successful.” Instead, the implementations that tend to work best are when higher ed institutions roll out reporting based on need, he says. Speciﬁc user groups with particular demands—for example, a student records oﬃce that wants to track attendance or class scheduling—are the best candidates for reporting tools, and the use of reporting applications can broaden out once those needs are met. Looking for the Truth from Data Even when a reporting strategy is rolled out slowly to a number of departments, or kept completely within the IT department, Server integration is important for a larger issue with reporting ensuring that administrators and staff can get the most useful reports, as the in general is the “single ver- IT staff at Oglethope U recognize. sion of the truth” problem. A database can give the same information to everyone who runs a report, but the parameters of that report, and what’s requested, can change the results dramatically. This is not unique to the higher ed arena; corporations also struggle with trying to standardize their reporting layer so that everyone is working from the same information and pulling the same results from databases. Reporting is not like printing out an Excel spreadsheet, after all, but is interpreting multiple streams of information in a way that determines subsequent strategies or actions, from setting new ﬁnancial goals to changing class size limits. “One of the problems in any organization of archiving a single version of the truth is to lock down the data and have one person do all the reports, but that’s impractical,” explains Ryan Rosenberg, vice president of marketing and services at FileMaker. Instead, more work needs to be done on the backend, in the IT department, to ensure data integrity but also to train users in how to interpret data. “One concern we have is getting the right presentation and deﬁnition of data,” says University of North Texas’ Hooper. “Three people can produce a report and all come to a meeting with a different number. So we’re having a lot of conversations with people who own the data and trying to create more eﬃcient data models. But every time we deploy something, we look back and wonder if we could do it even better.” Reporting: It Has Come a Long Way College and university leaders can use reporting functionality in a number of ways. Here’s a top-level look at student and faculty numbers from the Educational Technologies department at the University of Missouri at Columbia: 2005-2006 ET@MO Service to MU at a Glance Student enrollment in Blackboard and WebCT (per year) Courses supported on Blackboard and WebCT (per year) Courses and projects supporting online degree programs through MU direct One-on-one faculty consultations (technology, pedagogy, or both) Course surveys deployed using the MoCAT course evaluation tool Course sections implementing student response system devices (“clickers”) Faculty implementing student response system Students enrolled in courses using student response system Faculty participating in TeAchnology, a weeklong summer workshop Academic transformation departmental projects sponsored META Team faculty consultations/visits/small projects META Team major development projects Elizabeth Millard is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer who specializes in covering technology issues. universitybusiness.com 72 | August 2007 http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - August 2007

Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
People Watch
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Admissions
On the Hill
Future Shock
Independent Outlook
Facility Focus
Wanted: Foreign Students
Service With a Star
Beneficial Benefits
Addition By Subtraction
Report from EduComm 2007
Report Card
Internet Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - August 2007