Transforming higher education with data at #TCC12

Small or large, education institutions are challenged to find ways to make big impacts with limited resources. With a common pursuit of delivering high quality, engaging learning environments, Tableau has provided a way to convert valuable data into actionable insights about everything from course optimization and student recruitment to staffing decisions and budget planning.

Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, Shawnee State, and American Public University System will be featured together in a special Education Showcase session at this year’s Tableau Customer Conference. Each will share Tableau examples that showcase how their ability to analyze and share data faster and easier is transforming the way decisions are being made.

Ted Curran, Executive Director – Finance at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, will describe how he rapidly deployed a performance dashboard with game changing results in only 30 days after signing on with Tableau. Since then, the Tepper School's management team has used budget planning, scorecards, and Tableau to align units against the Dean’s five strategic priorities. Cross-departmental access, including mobile access with iPads, has provided a roadmap for short- and long-term goals.

Shawnee State, a public university in southern Ohio, has a small team that’s using Tableau to have a huge impact. Led by Chris Shaffer, the team has dug into data that impacts all corners of the university including course completion, grade distribution, marketing strategies, and scheduling effectiveness. The bottom line is that the incredible insight they now have into their data is changing the way they operate at all levels of the university.

Data-driven decision making is a core philosophy at American Public University System (APUS) that is championed at the executive level. Senior Manager of Institutional Research at American Public University, Elizabeth Wallace, Senior Manager, Institutional Research will share how a single executive dashboard evolved from a spreadsheet into an automated, self-service series of Tableau visualizations that incorporate blended data, actions, dynamic dimensions and measures, graphs and geographic maps. The result? Living up to the data-driven culture APUS has cultivated to deliver a top-notch educational experience.

At this year’s Tableau Customer Conference in San Diego, November 5-8, this is just one example of the perspective customers will bring to the rich content offered. If you’re in the education community, we encourage you to put this session on your list for the first week of November. Not only will the speakers share great ideas and examples you can take back and put into practice, you will have the opportunity to network with fellow education industry professionals, swap ideas, and build out your Tableau community. Learn more and register here. If you are part of a non-profit educational institution, you are entitled to a special registration pass price of $999. Please use the code TCC12EDU when you register.