1. Marianne Sheppard, Jisc infoNet
June 2014 Adding value through BI: the view from Jisc

2. What does Business Intelligence mean
to you?
1. BI is an umbrella term that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools,
and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve
and optimize decisions and performance.
2. BI is the use of computing technologies for the identification, discovery and
analysis of business data - like sales revenue, products, costs and incomes.
3. BI simplifies information discovery and analysis, making it possible for decision-
makers at all levels of an organization to more easily access, understand,
analyze, collaborate, and act on information, anytime and anywhere
4. BI is evidence-based decision-making and the processes that gather, present,
and use that evidence base
5. Computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing 'hard'
business data, such as sales revenue by products or departments or associated
costs and incomes
Adding value through BI: the view from Jisc 2

3. 3
Examples of attributes of a BI system
 Accessible when needed
 Concise, pictorial or graphical
 Up to date, current
 Known update times and intervals
 Can select data for [any, or defined] time period
 Good, reliable quality and integrity of data items
 [All, major] internal information sources are included
 Drill-down and roll-up capabilities (zoom in or zoom out;
allowing broader or narrower views, as the user requires)
 Easy to understand
And many more….
Adding value through BI: the view from Jisc

4. 4
(Some of!) the challenges
 Strategic alignment
 Process realignment
 Change management
 Data usage
 Data definition and management
 Data visualisation
 Vendor issues
And many more….
Adding value through BI: the view from Jisc

5. 5
More institutional perspectives of the
pros and cons
Adding value through BI: the view from Jisc

6. Jisc BI Journey to Date
Engage
HESA,
HESPA,
UCISA,
ARC,
AHUA,
UHR,
Guild HE,
UUK
National
research
fed
InfoKitV1
Project
Phase to
road test
V1
Analytics
included
as series
of
reports
InfoKit
updated
Jisc/HE
SA BI
Service
Plans
2010 2010 2011/12 2012/13 2013 2014
Adding value through BI: the view from Jisc

7. The BI infoKit
7
http://bit.ly/jisc_bi
Adding value through BI: the view from Jisc

8. Jisc / HESA Project Objectives
»Promoting sector maturity and capability for BI
»Bring the benefits of BI to wider staff groups
Through;
› Building on HESA expertise and experience of Heidi
› New technical service provision with satellite services
› Providing an experimentation area
› Exploring non-HESA data sets
› Investigating data upload for benchmarking
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9. Jisc / HESA BI Service
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10. Phase 1 (core service)
› Up to date, enhanced service offering analyses, data
visualisations and dashboards based on Heidi
› Ongoing community generated list of questions
› A range of analyses, visualisations & contextual
supporting information for safe onward use
› Allows users to generate own analyses / visualisations
› Existing Heidi features to allow on site data export
(API)
› Development of training and support materials to
enable best use
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11. Phase 2A (experimentation)
› Explore new analyses / visualisations & sustainability
options based on non Heidi data sets
› Negotiated access to appropriate data sets
› Produces analyses / visualisations combining sources
› rapid deployment with analysis of demand & options
for sustainability
› Cross institutional collaborative exploratory work
› Nascent national data catalogue for BI in HE
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12. Phase 2B (benchmarking)
› Explore a new data capture and integration system to
enable peer-to-peer institutional benchmarking
› Data capture to be agile and user controlled
› Provides tools data framework and definitions
› Users choose with whom to share
› A sector led response to the efficiency agenda
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13. Timescales
»Milestones
› 1 August project starts
› Last quarter 2014 hire projects
› Phase 1 tools available mid 2015
› Phase 2 tools available late 2015
› Project phase concludes 31 July 16
»Keep in touch
› Jisc-hesa-business-intel@jiscmail.ac.uk
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14. Library Analytics Project (LAMP)
Available now in beta
• A shared analytics service
• Allows raw data upload on students; UCAS, Registry
and Library
• Project creates dashboards / visualisations giving
insights into how students use services
• Identifies students following a path of failure
• Allows cross institutional benchmarking
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15. LAMP
Next Steps
• Automating visualization / dashboard creation
Overall
• Gives students and stakeholders access to their own data
to;
• Action the insights
• Following paths to success from failure
• Contact Ben; b.showers@jisc.ac.uk
• Blog http://jisclamp.mimas.ac.uk/
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