JISC

Overview

In the current financial climate it is vital that UK Universities have a clear picture of the progression and performance of students and are able to demonstrate that the policies and support structures in place are effective and targeted towards students with the most need for them. The University of Sheffield has collected a large amount of data regarding student admissions and progression through their academic career. A key problem is that all the data is not stored in a single repository and so analysing the data and its numerous facets is non trivial.

Aims and Objectives

The goal of this project is develop a methodology which will allow the analysis of the data in an aggregate way, by integrating information in different archives and enabling users to query the resulting archive knowledge base from a single point of access. Moreover we aim to integrate the internal information with publically available data on socio-economic indicators as provided by data.gov.uk. Our aims are to study, on a large scale, how student backgrounds impact their future academic achievements and to help the University devise evidence informed policies, strategies and procedures targeted to their students.

Project Methodology

We are following a classic user-centered design approach. With the assistance of our user group we are going to identify potentially useful data from open data sources such as data.gov.uk. Following this we will explore methods by which this data can be combined with our local student data. We will then build visualisations which allow end users to explore the data sets in more detail. We will then deploy our work and at a later date, perform an evaluation.

Anticipated Outputs and Outcomes

• Initial Data Study. Outlining the data we will use in the project.
• Initial Tool. A beta version of our combination tool.
• Interim Evaluation. The performance of the initial version of the tool.
• Follow Up Tool. An alpha version of the tool

Final Assessment. An overall evaluation of our system and approach.

Technology/Standards Used

We will be using largely open source technology based on semantic web standards.