Data, Research, & Security

Data Sources

Our data comes from many campus sources, including Admissions, Registrar, UCI Canvas, and more.

We are also strong partners with the Student Data Warehouse project, and are in the process of migrating as much of dbCompass to be sourced from the Student Data Warehouse as possible. This change-over will take place through 2025 and will be mostly transparent to users; however, some data elements may change slightly as we map to the campuswide standards.

Certain tools and applications source data from the Unizin Data Platform, which is governed by a contract between UCI and Unizin. Data in the UDP is stored in a Google BigQuery instance and available securely to authorized users only.

Data Source Diagram

Data Requests

Requesting data: If you are interested in accessing TLA data for research purposes, please get started by filling out theStudent Data Warehouse data request form. This will ensure that the broad spectrum of Compass teams are aware of your request and ensure that the best fit team helps you out.

Canvas LMS Data: Typically, Teaching & Learning Analytics will service requests for LMS (Canvas) data, supported by the Unizin Data Platform. In some cases, we may work with the UCI MUST project and partner folks with their data analyst, depending on the need.

Have an idea? If you have completed research that you think would be a good fit for a future report, dashboard, or tool for the campus, get in touch with us. We are always looking for new ways to help the campus community. For example, published research out of DTEI led to the creation of the Course Outcome Gap reports.

Data Security

All Teaching & Learning Analytics data is stored in the secure OIT Data Warehouse, which is protected by modern information security practices and technologies. TLA reports are all created using the IBM Cognos or Tableau business intelligence tools, which are both maintained by the OIT Business Intelligence team. TLA web applications are hosted in secure on-campus servers and adhere to information security best practices.

Access to TLA reports and web applications is controlled via the centralized campus KSAMS system. All requests for access are sent to the TLA team. Requests are processed by either the descriptive analytics lead or the project lead using this process:

  • Ensure that the potential new user is in an academic advising or counseling role
  • Double check that the potential new user is not currently an undergraduate student
  • Verify access to WebAdmin + Transcripts with the Registrar
  • Submit request to KSAMS, which includes: name, role, and a justification for the request
  • Validate information and approve request
  • Approved requests can take several hours to a day to take effect in Cognos and Tableau

The list of instructors in KSAMS is periodically updated using the bulk load process defined by OIT. These lists are provided to TLA upon request by the OIT Data Warehouse team, validated against the existing list of users, and then loaded in when needed. A history of these requests is maintained in ServiceNow, OIT's IT ticketing system.

If you have any questions about Compass data, please contact us.