Enterprise Data Management and Analytics (EDMA)
Data Management and Analytics
WesternU employees can access internal information about EDMA, our services and initiatives by visiting the EDMA Portal. Students and external constituents can reach us via email at analytics@westernu.edu
There have been a lot of activity on the data and analytics front in the last few years at WesternU, but most of that activity has been local. Individual colleges, programs, or departments have worked hard on initiatives that meet important needs. We’d like to build on that momentum by bringing collaborative effort and integrated data to the whole of WesternU. EDMA lives in Institutional Shared Services, alongside other enterprise-wide services, so we can bring important data and analytics services to the entire campus community.
WesternU has a lot of data, and that data is created by, processed by, and stored in over 700 different systems currently supported in the IT ecosystem. Wrangling that data into a structure that is integrated, secure, accessible, and appropriate for reporting and analysis is a complex job. EDMA’s vision is to build a centralized data warehouse that integrates data from a wide range of these systems, keep it organized and up to date, and make it accessible to users across the institution for analysis, reporting, and dashboarding.
Simply having a giant warehouse of data is only half the battle. Understanding the data, drawing insights for decision making, building robust and engaging presentations of the data, and projecting outcomes with confidence are key to running successful programs, departments, and initiatives. There are many WesternU faculty and staff currently engaged in analytic work, and much additional analytic work waiting to be engaged. EDMA’s vision is to provide analytic and reporting services where they are needed, and to support our current analytic champions with tools, training, and collaboration.
The keys to success for data and analytics at the enterprise level include:
- High levels of data literacy across the organization
- Shared language around institutional data and analytics
- Collaboration and community among data users and consumers
- Shared governance of data policies, practices, and priorities
EDMA will be spearheading data education, data literacy, and best practices education for data users and consumers across campus. We’ll be compiling and publishing data dictionaries, documentation, and help files for institutional datasets, reports and dashboards. We’ll be working to build a collaborative and supporting data community on campus through events and resources that bring data users together. And we’ll be relaunching the Data Governance Committee to ensure that constituencies from across the institution have a say in data policy development, and project prioritization.
Office of EDMA
Steve Eubanks
Assistant Vice President
Esther Davis
Data Platform Engineer