Editor’s Note: In the April 9 edition of @Metro, the Metro State community was introduced to the eMERGE initiative, a collaborative information system that will change how the College shares and uses information. To read that article, go to
http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/eMERGE_twv5040908.shtml.

Next up in the massive eMERGE project is creating the enterprise data warehouse (EDW), a resource formatted for high-speed access and analytical processing using the Cognos reporting tool.

Eventually, the EDW will house the College’s 40-plus years of historical data that can be combined with current snapshots of information from eMERGE’s operational data store (ODS) in a higher education-specific model for trend and analytical reporting.

There are probably a dozen good reasons to have an enterprise data warehouse, according to project manager Rick Beck, director of applications services in Information Technology. “The top three benefits are that it will be easier, the data will be more consistent and it will be secure.”

Larry Worster, director for student services technology and assessment adds, “For the institution, the importance is that we will be able to ask questions in the future that we did not anticipate today. Currently, if we did not have the foresight to generate a report five years ago, it is extremely difficult to create a trend analysis. This will help everything.”

Beck says that once the EDW is up and running, all the data will be uniform and clearly identified as to what piece of information it is. “Which is true for the ODS as well,” he adds.

Plus, you can schedule it to run reports automatically, such as every Friday or on the first of the month.

One example of the EDW’s capabilities would be a Cognos-generated report that looks at student enrollment by department, gender, ethnicity and region over the past five years to help understand and plan recruiting strategies.

The EDW will be set up using the Office of Institutional Research rules – also known as the dashboard – so that future data are consistent with historical data.

Training first
OIR Coordinator Ellen Boswell says that before the actual uploading of OIR data into the warehouse can begin, training on creating reports for four different modules using the operational data store must be completed by the appropriate personnel. The four modules are: human resources, finance, financial aid, and student. (The student module incorporates all student-related functions throughout the College, including those in Student Services and Academic Affairs.)

The training should be complete by the end of August, but Boswell won’t hazard a guess on the timeframe for the OIR data to be uploaded. “I can’t say how long it will take, not knowing what problems we may encounter,” she explains. “All the Banner data from the last 10 years should go fairly smooth, but when we get into the old Legacy system, it could be really cumbersome.”

Staffing
Of course there are staffing needs for the eMERGE project. Abdisalam (Abdi) Aimad, a former IT employee, has been recruited back to fill the database administrator position for the ODS/EDW. Also, Eric Peng has been reassigned as the Cognos reporting administrator.

Watch @Metro for the next in the series of articles about eMERGE: “The Recruitment and Student Retention Enrollment Management Modules – our final goal.”