Managing the Data Warehouse

One of the challenges of being in a large school district is being physically removed from the main administration building where most of the administrative systems reside and the administrative work is done. The IT contact person in my building has responsibility for managing any issues with individual laptops, One of the challenges of taking a course during the summer is having limited access to persons with knowledge of the inside workings of our district. So I will be writing this post from the perspective of the gentleman with whom I spoke regarding the survey of our SIS / CIA systems, Mr. Craig Dilks.

Craig appears to be the owner / manager of the data within our district or manages those who have that responsibility. As the district's Director of MIS, the tasks mentioned – managing the servers, insuring the data warehouse is clean, and running the reports – all fall under Craig's domain. I am aware of one mathematics teacher who requests certain reports from Craig in order to create some applications used in our school for creating an employee directory accessible to the staff within our building. Craig will run these as requested and return the information to Bill in a timely basis.

Bernhardt states that “not having someone who knows the entire system could spell disaster” (Bernhardt, p. 159) and Craig is that man in our district. As mentioned in my SIS / CIA post, Craig included personnel in many different capacities in defining requirements and implementation of the SIS systems, which is consistent with Bernhardt's assertion that “most districts have at least one IT person and someone with an education background working together to maintain their data warehouses” (Bernhardt, p. 159). User support for using the data warehouse is provided on an “as needed” basis. For example, when we implemented the online grading component of eSchoolplus this past school year, teachers were provided with electronic documentation, written documentation, voluntary small group training, and a “super user” contact person in our building to answer questions. Fortunately for me, the teacher who was the super user in our building was my next door neighbor, giving me an unfair advantage in learning to use this new piece of software!

Bernhardt, V.L. (2008). Translating data into information to improve teaching and learning. Larchmont, NY: Eye On Education, Inc.