Data & Analytics | News

Illinois School District Implements Data Warehouse for Analytics

• By Leila Meyer
• 02/12/14

Community Unit School District 308 in Illinois has implemented a data warehouse solution for data management, analytics and reports.

The district set a goal three years ago to consolidate its disparate databases into a data warehouse so it could better use the information to understand the effect of variables on student achievement. The district selected performance management solution provider, DecisionEd.

According to information on the company's site, DecisionEd is designed to bring quantitative business decision-making tools, such as the Kimball methodology and star schema models, to K-12 education. The solution features data dashboards, reports, alerts, scorecards, metrics and analytics. The data management tools let the district combine its various databases into a unified system to provide a district-wide view of student, school, program and district performance, so administrators and faculty can analyze all of the information and pinpoint factors that affect student achievement. They can then open an on-screen dashboard or generate reports to view the information using the integrated IBM Cognos dashboard and reporting tool.

"The data warehouse tool will give the district the ability to measure the impact of our decisions and actions on the success of our students," said Brenda M. Dixon, director of assessment, data and accountability, in a prepared statement. "It will also enable administrators to analyze data and recognize student needs, determine a course of action to meet those needs, implement the resulting strategies and monitor results."

Community Unit School District 308 serves nearly 18,000 students and employs more than 2,000 staff, teachers and administrators in the communities of Aurora, Joliet, Montgomery, Oswego, Plainfield and Yorkville, IL.