3.1 Systems

3.1.1 Admissions Records

Admissions records are housed in a system called Slate. Typically only the admissions staff have access to them. Additionally, it is important to review the data that are connected to the different applications that can be submitted for consideration (see here for details).

• Common Application
• The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success Application
• The 2020 Wake Forest Application
• The College Foundation of North Carolina

I strongly recommend that you read through each application in order to understand the data that are collected and can be collected. It is important to remember that there are inconsistencies in the types of data collected, and different student may prefer different applications.

3.1.2 Student Records and Financial Aid

Student records (Academics, Financial Aid, status as a First Generation Student) are all stored in Banner (as of 2019). These data are all in an Oracle star scheme type data base.

Typically the raw Banner tables are not accessed and instead the data are accessed through the enterprise data warehouse or EDW. The EDW is an oracle database with static snapshots of Banner data. The EDW is most easily accessed through the cognos reporting tool to build reports using this data. Because of work by the BI Team, the connections and schema have already been mapped in cognos which makes it easy to build reports.

This website https://sites.google.com/a/wfu.edu/student-reporting/ has additional details about how the data are structured.

3.1.3 Student Activity Participation

The Link is repository for all the data regarding student engagement.

3.1.4 HR and Finance

HR and Finance have transitioned to Workday.

3.1.5 Housing

Housing data are stored in StarRes.

3.1.6 Learning Management System (LMS)

The LMS as of 2019 is Sakai. The student engagement data are stored in a remote (cloud hosted) Amazon Redshift database. Permissions can be sought and this data access. This includes test scores, click on the website, time stamps for activities, and a lot of information. This data source was never completely mined for insights in the Office of Institutional Research. Partly because the use of the LMS is inconsistent amongst instructors no real effort was made to investigate further.

3.1.7 Job Placement

The Office of Career and Personnel Development uses HandShake to store student information regarding internships and employment.

3.1.8 Academic and Residential Badge Use

Data regarding student badge use for entering the different buildings on campus is available via the AccessControl database. This databases stores all of the time stamps for entry into the different buildings on campus with badge readers. It is important to note that as buildings being updated, the badge readers and thus data generating process is changing.

3.1.9 Dining Hall Swipes

While the DeaconOne card is used both for entry into buildings and as a way to pay for items, Aramark controls the data for purchases. They store these data in a Blackbaud database with a 6 month data store onsite and backups offsite.

Figure 3.1: DeaconOne Guide