Student Affairs Data Hub

Before adding all the bells and whistles, we need to start simple:

• Think about your day-to-day job — making decisions, planning operations, working with students.
  
• What information would be most helpful to have at your fingertips?
  
• A data app is just a tool to bring all of that information together into one place so you can use it.
  

Data Hub Development:

• These principles shift the traditional process of assessment to a much more active, collaborative approach.
  
• We need to work together to generate ideas and solve problems.
  
• We’re going to jump into the data hub so we can look at some examples of how this is done.
  
• Then, we’re going to brainstorm some ideas of new things that we can create.
  

Engagement Leaderboard:

• The concept is simple, but the execution is complicated.
• The manual process would be time consuming and inefficient.
• It would also need to be repeated every time there is new data.

Decker Advising Leaderboard App:

• Core Data: Attendance data from Decker Advising Events.

Scaling for Other Areas:

• The shell of one app can be quickly and easily adapted for other areas.
  
• Using the events framework, we can remove the leaderboard, add demographic information, and connect this to events from one area or across departments to create new apps.
• This allows us to scale our work.
  

Transfer Student Services App:

• Core Data: Attendance data from Transfer Student Success Events and demographic information from Banner.

B-Healthy App:

• Core Data: Attendance data from all events hosted, co-hosted, or tagged as B-Healthy events and demographic information from Banner.

Full Control and Exploration:

• Apps do not need to be focused on event data.
• Imagine the needs of an advisor that works with first-year students.
• They may want to see individual data to guide conversations with students.
• They also may need data on the entire class for context.

First-Year Advising App:

• Core Data: I’m not listing them all, look at the app.

App Design:

• Now that we have seen a few examples, we’re going to spend some time brainstorming some app designs.
  
• Each table is going to come up with a data app design that solves a problem (big or small) for the university.
  
• So how do we design a new app? It’s simple, we map it out and draw it.
• Let’s take a look.
  

Return to the core idea:

• Think about your day-to-day job — making decisions, planning operations, working with students.
  
• What information would be most helpful to have at your fingertips?
  
• What problem will this solve?
  
• Discuss this with your table and pick one idea to focus on.
  
• Write your group’s idea at the top of your worksheet.

Think about who will be using your app and create a basic user profile:

• Who are they?
  
• Where do they work?
  
• What do they do?
  
• Jot down some key characteristics about your users that helps inform your design.
  

Think about the data that you need for your app:

• What specific data do you need?
• What systems or departments have the data?
• Jot down a list of key data sources. Be specific.

Sketch out the app:

• What do users need to see? (graph? raw data? individual information or overall trends?)
• What should they be able to explore?
• How will they contextualize the data?
• Use the worksheet to sketch out what your app will look like.
  

Sell your app:

• Come up with a 30 second pitch to convince others why your app will be useful.
• How will it help the app user?
• What areas can use it?
• Who does it benefit?
  
• What problem does it solve?

We are looking to collaborate:

• We are looking for areas that want to collaborate on designing new apps and helping us refine the process.
• We need areas that are willing to pilot new apps and explore how to incorporate data more effectively in their daily work.
  
• If you have an idea, even if we didn’t discuss it today, please reach out to SAASE.