2010 Analysis Cube Now Available!

The Data Warehouse now has an updated "cube" containing 2010 data. "Yippee! An early Christmas gift!" I can hear some of you say, while others are scratching their heads, "What's a cube?"

"Cubes" in the Education Data Warehouse (also known as Cognos PowerPlay) are predefined data tables that make on-the-fly data manipulation possible. The cube's crosstab display (a data table) allows for dragging and dropping of various data elements in order to create new tabular displays of data. These tables can then be displayed in chart form, or exported to Excel for further analysis.

Chapter 3 in the EDW User's Guide gives more information about use of the cubes, for those who are new to its use. The ESE also provides materials for a half-day course on the cubes, which can be found linked to the EDW Welcome screen under "Training Materials." [I do offer regional cube workshops from time to time, so please contact me if you're looking for training.]

If you've played around with the cubes before, but need a bit of a refresher, I've created a "how-to" sheet which illustrates the use of the cube to explore trends in performance by standard and strand over time. There is no pre-defined report in the Education Data Warehouse that provides this information, but it can be pulled from the cube using these instructions. Your feedback on this document is welcome!

Finally, I would love to know how schools and districts are using the cube. Please contact me and let me know your cube uses...I will share what I find out in a future blog post. Also, the ESE folks will be producing and sharing a set of cube views in the EDW which can serve as starting points for for targeted inquiries. Stay tuned!

What Reports Do You Need?

The Data Specialists group will be meeting next month to discuss common needs for the development of new reports for the Data Warehouse. So now is your chance...what kinds of reports does the DW not currently provide that you would find useful? Please share your ideas so that I can bring them to the discussion.

On a similar note, if you have ideas for tools/reports that could be developed using Excel for data analysis and visualization, please share those too! You may recall the performance distribution comparison tool I posted last month ... one assistant principal's inquiry became a tool that everyone can use!

So, are there ways you'd like to visualize or analyze your data that aren't easy to do right now? Please email me (laura.tilton@dsacma.org) with any suggestions, requests, or ideas.

...and Happy Thanksgiving!

Early Warning Indicator Index (EWII) - New Resources Available

The folks at the ESE have developed the Early Warning Indicator Index to provide "early warning" data to assist local staff in identifying and supporting students in grade 9 who may be at risk of not graduating on time from high school. This data has been piloted over the last few years, but this is the first year it is being provided to all school districts statewide.

Early Warning Indicator Index (EWII) assigns students who were enrolled in eighth grade at the end of the 2009-2010 school year one of five risk levels (Very High Risk, High Risk, Borderline, At Risk, or Low Risk) based on their grade 8 MCAS results, grade 8 attendance rate, age as of September 1, 2010, and number of in- and out-of-school suspensions in the 2009-2010 school year. The EWII can be used by the district as a starting point for identifying and supporting students who may be at risk of not graduating on time from high school.

A variety of resources related to the EWII were placed in the district Accountability 2010 Drop Box in the security portal within the past week, including:

• A guidance/FAQ document with additional details about the EWII
• Detailed rosters for these students (most of whom are likely to be 9th graders in 2010-2011) in Microsoft Excel format
• An additional Excel document containing both a calculator for determining risk levels for students who are not listed on the roster, as well as summary risk level data by district, region, and accountability and assistance level.

Please note that only district personnel with the "Accountability - District" security role (assigned by the district Directory Administrator) may access these data.

A Resource Summary and Shout-Out to SSESPA

I wanted to post a special "thank you" to the South Shore Elementary School Principals Association for inviting me to speak at their meeting last Friday. I am glad you've found your way to the SouthEast Educational Data (SEED) blog and hope you'll find the information here helpful.

Here is a brief summary of the resources I mentioned at the SSESPA meeting - some data related, and some general - which I hope will be useful for all SEED blog visitors.

Data Warehouse Resources (some very practical blog postings)

• Running Reports in the Background
• Creating Customized Student Roster Reports
• Engaging Staff in MCAS Data Exploration Activity
• Data Warehouse Report Summary Document (updated 10/20/2010)

The Growth Model - a new way to look at student performance

School and District Profiles - access lots of school/district data without logging in to the DW!

District Analysis and Reporting Tool (DART) - allows comparison with "like" schools and districts using a variety of indicators

Toolkits and Resources on the ESE/DSAC Web page

• Conditions for School Effectiveness Self-Assessment
• Professional Learning Communities Guidance
• District Data Team Toolkit
• Learning Walk-Through Implementation Guide
• Common Planning Time Self-Assessment Toolkit

If you're new to the blog, please check out the right hand side of the main SEED blog page for Email subscription options as well as access to previous posts through the Archives or Labels links.

Data Warehouse Status Updates

As many of you know, the Data Warehouse is experiencing technical difficulties and has been "up" and "down" over the last week or so. I realized that it may not make sense to post DW status updates here on the blog, since the status may be outdated by the time you receive the notification.

The ESE folks have modified the security portal login page to include a time-stamped DW status update without requiring login, so please check there for the latest news.

Data Warehouse is back online!

***UPDATE 11/8/2010***The ESE folks have modified the security portal login page to include a time-stamped DW status update without requiring login, so please check there for the latest news.

As many of you may have noticed, the Data Warehouse was down for a few days this week. It's now back up, and the following information appears on the Welcome page in the Data Warehouse:

The EDW is back online and all content has been restored. Thank you for your patience during this unscheduled outage.

A small percentage of users may be missing content in their My Folders. However, be assured that we have all content in a backup folder and it will be restored to your My Folders upon request. Please contact us at datawarehouse@doe.mass.edu if your content is missing from My Folders.

My understanding is that users whose accounts were created within the past year are most likely to encounter this issue, which is easily remedied with an email to the Data Warehouse team at the address above.