Open University: Linking Data Systems to Power Tableau Dashboards
What did Open University need?
The Open University was looking to make more and better use of its learning analytics in regularly reported visual dashboards combining data from a number of internal source systems, which we were not linked together. Specifically, they needed more intelligence to understand:
- the impact of different forms of reminder and incentives to improve completion of different modules, to help plan how to roll out further incentive initiatives
- a longer term view of course completion, looking over multiple years, rather than individual modules, and how this varies between learner characteristics
What we did
We first helped the OU build an understanding of how their various data sources could be used together to deliver powerful insights on the expected behavioural outcomes of interventions they put in place with their students.
We then built prototype data visualisation workbooks in Tableau to allow them to explore data from their web logs, click through to websites from emails, helpdesk, call centre interventions and more. We build out linkages and matching processes, where possible, to join the disparate source systems together in meaningful ways. A key feature of this phase was to ensure that we developed visually engaging depictions of complex data for different audiences.
The impact of our work
The processes and Tableau dashboards we set up enabled the OU to seamlessly update the analysis as data sources were updated (fuzzed example below). They were able to directly adjust their interventions in response to the new insights brought about, and in turn drive up retention rates. We were subsequently commissioned to do follow up analysis using Google Analytics data.
