Business Intelligence for the Education Sector

A large education establishment such as a university has major administrative and organisational needs and Business Intelligence can help in a number of ways. In addition, increasing competition and funding issues add to the need for control and analysis of information. Often data comes from a variety of systems and this inevitably involves converting data from one format to another.

Dimensional modelling of data into hierarchies can help the administration track room bookings by staff, highlighting times of high usage and enabling costs to be monitored.

Universities have Business Intelligence needs in a number of areas, including administration, enrolment and planning. Vital planning and organisational information needs to be made available in a timely manner to a large number of staff members and students. A wholly scalable, web-based enterprise-wide system such as Cognos 8 Business Intelligence is able to provide access to information of the scope and complexity required by a modern academic organisation.

Often large unforeseen cost savings can be made and decision making improved through better data integration and more timely delivery of information to decision makers and administrators. Forecasting capabilities enable universities and other academic organisations to plan which courses to offer, while analysis tools such as OLAP cubes highlight which courses have been most successful and cost-effective in the past.