Academic Department Metrics in Nine Weeks: Lessons Learned

Presentation Summary

Emily Thomas and Ora Fish; New York University

Academic Department Metrics in Nine Weeks: Lessons Learned

We will demonstrate an OBIEE dashboard built in nine weeks to profile the resources and activities of science departments and discuss lessons learned from the project. The dashboard content was defined by a provostial advisory group that identified a set of “key metrics for assessing science and technology departments.” The dashboard contains most of those metrics, synthesizing data from multiple institutional systems and departmental input. Administrative politics gave us nine weeks to produce a fully functional dashboard for demonstration at a high-visibility retreat of the university's executive and academic leadership. We will discuss issues including functional/IT collaboration to meet tight project deadlines, aligning data from multiple systems to departments and sub-departmental units, providing metadata, and facilitating user validation to gain acceptance. We hope the demonstration will stimulate audience discussion about managing warehouse projects and the design and dissemination of dashboards for academic executives.