Data & Security

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 throughout 2023/24 and will be mostly transparent to users; however, some data elements may change slightly as we map to the campuswide standards.

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.