Odessa College Selects ZogoTech™ to Implement Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Solution
Achieving the Dream school to focus on data for decision-making, progress and growth
November 11, 2009 (Dallas, TX)—ZogoTech announced today that it has been selected by Odessa, TX-based Odessa College (OC) to integrate its data warehousing and business intelligence software in order for Odessa College to have better, more manageable access to its current data.
The 63-year-old college is experiencing rapid growth, and recently surpassed the 5,000-student mark for two consecutive semesters. In addition, the school was recently recognized as part of the Achieving The Dream community college initiative, in which data plays a vital role in driving change.
Odessa College President Greg Williams says, “Our goal is to be the very best community college in the nation. We know that’s a hard, heavy lift, but it’s a goal we should pursue. So with that in mind, we are doing everything we can to upgrade and ZogoTech is a big part of that.”
Currently, most data regarding the college is in the school’s enterprise resource planning system but is difficult to extract.
As Tanya Hughes, chief of staff, explains, “To get even the simplest information sometimes can require a series of queries and if you’re not knowledgeable on how to build those queries, then it can be an arduous, tedious task extracting information from Colleague [ERP system].”
With the Executive Intelligence module, Odessa College hopes to monitor key performance indicators, provide dashboards and track the progress towards strategic goals. Odessa hopes to use the Research Intelligence module to analyze data, automates data gathering and cleansing and performs graphical analysis through drag-and-drop tools. The Student Engagement module will provide campus administrators with data they need to implement objectives, including easy-to-use ad-hoc query and reporting tools and automatically calculated at-risk indicators for students.
“I think it will help us shift from doing things by the seat of our pants sometimes to having the data, and then comparing that data to what others are doing, and that will help us to make better decisions overall,” says Williams.
Others across campus will have access to data and be able to run their own reports so that the institutional researchers can shift their focus from ad hoc reporting to more thorough data analysis.
“The reason we are doing this is that we want to be more transparent and accountable internally and to the community we serve,” says Hughes. “We don’t want to base decisions on anecdotal data or a hunch; we want to use data as we make our decisions. What blew me away is how quickly you can pull data and you can change. Something that might take hours to program is now available in just a matter of minutes.”
ZogoTech has already begun the deployment phase of its software solution by meeting with key constituents across campus to define the rules of the software.
“We’re excited to able to work with ZogoTech,” says Williams, “and we think we’ll have some great accomplishments down the road that our institution will be improved due to the relationship.”
About Odessa College
Founded more than 60 years ago, Odessa College is a two-year institution offering vocational, technical and academic courses for certification or association degrees. Odessa College offers 44 credit hours of core courses that are equivalent to those at a university, and as many as 60 semester hours will transfer to the university level. Students can receive Associates Degrees in 48 areas of study and certification options in 25 areas of study. Today, the $55 million main campus spreads over 80 acres and includes 25 buildings that house more than 150 classrooms, labs and other facilities. The college serves more than 30,000 square miles, making it the largest service area for any community college in Texas.
About ZogoTech
The aims of ZogoTech are nothing short of revolutionizing the way that educators and administrators use technology. ZogoTech’s Institutional Intelligence software has been built through partnerships with institutions of higher education to deliver a solution that precisely answers the data needs of executives, institutional researchers, faculty and student services personnel. ZogoTech brings an in-depth knowledge of higher education, superior customer support, and software solutions highly-acclaimed for their usability. See ZogoTech.com for more information.
Contact Information
- Cassandra Johnson
- Marketing/PR Manager
- cjohnson@zogotech.com
- (888) 221-6372 ext. 807