Access to student data now faster and more secure

As stewards of student academic data on campus, the OUR is always looking for ways to improve all aspects of that data. We want it to be more accessible to those who need it (subject to FERPA rules, of course) as well as benefit the University in new ways, like the recently-launched Photo Class Lists.

That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of “UWSDB-Datastore” in the Enterprise Data Warehouse. The EDW is a University-wide initiative to modernize management, analysis, and reporting for all kinds of data on campus including student data. UWSDB-Datastore is a large and rich collection of student and academic program data. It will greatly increase the ability of EDW to serve student data analysts and report developers.

Having UWSDB-datastore available through the EDW brings many improvements. Those that will be most evident through the OUR include:

• Faster turn-around time for reports requested
• Greater access to the information through UW NetID access, reducing the need to request reports from the OUR.
• Distributed report development using common data, common tools, and common data definitions.

The new environment comes with controls to monitor usage of the data to ensure student data is kept private and not abused. That’s an aspect of our mission that we take seriously. We applaud the Office of Information Management for the care they’ve taken in widening the availability of the UWSDB-Datastore through the EDW.