Pre-Read Materials

Notes from 2018-08-26 Analytics Middle Tier Special Interest Group

Agenda

1. Present revisions to the data model(s)
2. Additional feedback on any aspect of this proposal.

Attendees

• Andrew Rice
• Cy Jones
• Ed Comer
• Jean-Francois Guertin
• Jo McGinn
• Jon Hickam
• Josh Newman
• Laura Keith
• Mike Werner
  
• Monica Hogan
• Rafferty McDonald
• Shane Fairbairn
• Shane McGregor
• Shannon Kerlick
• Stephen Fuqua
• Tarun Verma

Notes

Includes some follow-up direct to Stephen after the formal phone call ended.

• Walked through the model changes described in Ed-Fi Analytics Middle Tier Design Proposal 2018-09-07.pdf
• In the best practices guidance, acknowledge that providing direct database access to vendors is not the typical practice. When using these views, it can be easy to authorize access only to the views and not to other data.
• Need to read FERPA and ensure designed security models are or can be compliant.
• Once published, the view interfaces will be considered fixed. The Alliance will prefer versioning the views (e.g. StudentDimension_v2) over breaking the interface if changes are required.
• With the guidance to cache/store data in the analytics database - rather than letting user actions perform queries directly against the ODS - it should be pointed out that data modelers will want to pull in all views and other tables, if needed. For example, education organization addresses: if these will be needed, then even if not provided in a formal view, then the source table(s) should be cached in the data model.
• Regarding event vs. fact:  is the event concept practical for this user base? Is it likely that someone will want to have a single record representing a transaction (e.g. enrollment in Special Education program), or would they prefer to simply know the fact that on day X, student was actively enrolled? The event concept might be too specific. If such events are desired, or other summaries are desired (e.g. pivots), then it might be good to first provide a straight-forward denormalized view. Build additional layers on top of that as needed.