Dashboards for Decision Making in Higher Education

Abstract

Dashboards are used as a graphical user interface that provides at-a-glance views into key measures and trends to assist decision makers in the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) to enhance learning support for students.

A student’s first contact with SUSS often starts at the point of application (i.e., applying for places in the University). Hence, the process of application, selection and offer has been identified as the business problem in this project. An effective dashboard will empower users to make more informed decisions with a visibility to data and ease in generating insights, ultimately streamlining the selection and offer process. The users in this project are the stakeholders who deploy the dashboard in the process of and decision making related to selection and offer.

Quality of information on the dashboard is highly dependent on the state of data, including their completeness and accuracy. Quality of a dashboard can be measured by how much impact it can make, which is directly related to actions taken by users with information extracted from the dashboard. With the right knowledge and skills in developing an effective dashboard, business objectives can be met and user requirements can be catered for. If every decision maker is able to customise his/her own dashboards that meet business objectives and user requirements, the University will be empowered at a functional level, with various departments supporting students through their respective roles and functions. Challenges in data and people issues will be discussed in this paper alongside the future directions in overcoming these issues.