1. Team Tom
Interested in a QA data dashboard?
User stories
Overview of Analytics Lab
Analytics Labs is a joint project run by the
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and
Jisc. Cross institutional teams from university
strategic planning departments work together
to analyse HESA and other data sources for
new business insights. The project teams
agree on user-generated business questions
that are pertinent for the HE sector and then
answer them by designing data dashboards.
Teams spend one day a week for three months
developing the boards.
Teams get to:
In asscociation with
Try out data
manipulation and
analysis tools such as
Alteryx and Tableau
Work collaboratively
using agile methodology
Identify and negotiate
access to a wide selection
of HE collections
Creating data dashboards to support planning
Team Tom focused on research and
developed three user stories:
l The postgraduate research
student experience
l Brexit and international exposure
l Preparation for REF
Data sets included HESA student and
staff, PRES, Eurostats, CORDIS and RCUK.
Other teams have looked at areas
including library resources, employability,
finance, FE, staff and TEF.
Myles Danson,
Senior Co-Design
Manager, Jisc
Carolyn Deeming,
Market Intelligence
Manager, Plymouth
UniversityJonathan Rathmill,
Planning Officer,
University of Kent
Marieke Guy,
Data Analyst, QAA
Kris Popat, Data
Wrangler, CETIS
HESA Heidi Plus is the new business intelligence
service for the UK HE sector. The service provides
access to extensive data and the latest visualisation
technology to promote efficient decision making in HE.
Some of the dashboards designed in Analytics Labs
are already being delivered through Heidi Plus.
Would you be interested in learning new data skills
and developing a data dashboard that supports
QA work? Can you spare 1 day a week to work with
fellow QA experts? Do you have ideas for the type
of QA questions planners are asking? (e.g. looking at
TEF, QA processes, estates management etc.) If you
are interested in being involved in the next round of
Analytics labs, contact Marieke Guy (m.guy@qaa.ac.uk).
Elena Hristozova,
Planning Officer,
University of
Nottingham
Tom Wale, Head of
Resource Allocation,
University of Oxford
[Team leader]