CLAS DATA TEAM DELIVERS DATA DASHBOARDS FOR DELIBERATE
DECISION-MAKING To facilitate strategic, data-driven decision making in the College, we formed the CLAS Data Team in late 2020. Its members–Alex Junk (Business Intelligence Architect), Karen Noggle (Sr. Business Analyst), and Romeliza Wise (Sr. Business Intelligence Analyst), led by Hans Hoerschelman (Lead Application Developer)–began by assembling the data needed for the College’s self-study document ahead of its 2021 review. Since then, the team has been hard at work producing intuitive, visually attractive, and constantly updated data “dashboards” for leaders to use, employing the Tableau platform. Dean Sanders and her team of Associate Deans have begun utilizing these dashboards, and department-focused versions will soon be rolled out to all DEOs in the College to aid them in effective decision-making. CLAS Tableau data dashboards are grouped into projects based on the topic of interest. For example, the Grants dashboard provides 10-year trends of proposals, awards, and success rates for major sponsors (NASA, NIH and NSF) as well as data on private grants and fellowships. It also includes current grant fund balances with year-to-date major expense categories (salary, general expense, and F&A). Other displays present College-wide as well as department- by-department information on topics of importance to DEOs and deans such as FTEs, undergraduate majors and graduate programs, course enrollments, teaching loads, and student credit hours.
With Tableau, data analysis is about asking questions and not about learning software: Tableau enables limitless visual data exploration, packing years of data in intuitive views that help users and uncover insights faster. A major advantage of Tableau dashboards over traditional static spreadsheets is their ability to provide just-in-time, constantly updated reporting of current and historical CLAS data housed in several disconnected application systems on our campus (e.g., HR FTE and salary, DSP grants, MAUI course enrollment) in a one-stop shop. Users never miss the forest for the trees, as the dashboards allow them seamlessly to adjust their data lens from College to department and down to a faculty level of detail. Most views are split into quadrants combining numeric summary tables with interactive and colorful charts that display additional information as users hover over data points with their cursor or click. A beta version of the DEO dashboard was also rolled out to four departments in January 2022 for testing. Using their hawkid and password, all DEOs and administrators will be presented with data on the department they manage. A few individuals who oversee more than one unit will be able to simply choose which department to display. The DEO dashboard was demonstrated to all DEOs and departmental administrators in early May, and is slated for release to all CLAS departments during the summer. We think this will be a major step forward for CLAS leadership, and will facilitate better decision-making as we navigate the future.
CLAS GRANTS The CLAS overall grant trends view shows the sharp increase in both proposals and awards since 2018, the year the CLAS Grant Support Office was founded.
12 I College of Liberal Arts and Sciences • clas.uiowa.edu
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