Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 2. Analytics for the Whole Institution: Balancing Strategy and Tactics (pdf)
Link: CETIS Analytics Series Vol 1, No 2. Analytics for the Whole Institution: Balancing Strategy and Tactics (MS Word .docx)

The benefits afforded by the longitudinal collection and analysis of key institutional data are not new to enterprise IT managers nor to senior management more generally. Data warehousing and Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards are integral to the modern management mindset and part of the ‘enterprise IT’ architecture of many Higher Education Institutions and Further Education Colleges.

However some things are changing that pose questions about how business intelligence and the science of analytics should be put to use in customer facing enterprises:

• The demonstration by online services ranging from commodity sales to social networks of what can be done in near-real time with well-connected data.
• The emphasis brought by the web to the detection, collection and analysis of user activity data as part of the BI mix, ranging from clicks to transactions.
• The consequent changes in expectations among web users of how services should work, what businesses could do for them, accompanied by shifts in legal and ethical assumptions.
• The availability of new types of tools for managing, retrieving and visualizing very large data that are cheap, powerful and (not insignificantly) accessible to grass roots IT users.

Set against that backdrop, this paper aims to;

• Characterise the educational data ecosystem, taking account of both institutional and individual needs.
• Recognise the range of stakeholders and actors – institutions, services (including shared above-campus and contracted out), agencies and vendors.
• Balance strategic policy approaches with tactical advances.
• Highlight data that may or may not be collected.
• Identify opportunities, issues and concerns arising.

Our focus is therefore not on technology but rather on high value gains in terms of business objectives, the potential for analytics and opportunities for new thinking across the organisation.

[pdf http://publications.cetis.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Analytics-for-the-Whole-Institution-Vol1-No2.pdf]