On November 8th and 9th on campus in Tempe, ASU will be hosting our 7th annual Data Conference where members of the ASU data community will come together to network, share, and collaborate. Come hear about the tools that your peers use to extract data, query data, create visualizations, and build the things that help ASU leaders make data-informed decisions every day.
To take a few lines from some well-known DIY companies, our ASU data folks are builders…doers…people who know how to get things done. Our data professionals are made better by the tools they have to help them build the things they need to build.
The conference will start with a keynote fireside chat with Kate Valenti. Kate is the co-CEO of Unicon, an Arizona-based higher ed consulting firm. Kate will share her insights on the trends she's seeing around data and tools across higher ed.
In addition to a full slate of presentation sessions from your peers, we’ll have a Data Tool Bar set up where you can stop in and talk with data experts from Alteryx, AWS, Google, Tableau and of course, Enterprise Technology at ASU. The Data Tool Bar will be open throughout the entire conference.
Finally, we’ll also be hosting Sliced…our very own live data visualization competition. Come cheer on your fellow data nerds as they create some data viz magic and compete for the coveted Sliced championship.
Stop in and talk with industry specialists at our first-ever Data Conference 'Data Tool Bar'!
Browse the agenda
November 8, 2023
9:00 a.m. Welcome & Keynote
Featured Keynote - a fireside chat with Kate Valenti, co-CEO of Unicon
10:00 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Is your ETL Process Working?
Presented by: Amedeo Feroce
Demo of a how ETL Processes update a Log Table with Start and End Times along with record counts. Log table is used to generate a daily scorecard.
Business Analysis Practices for Data/BI Analysts/Developers
Presented by: Josh Johnson, Sarah Foster
What do people successfully working with data have in common with toddlers? They both ask "why?"... incessantly. Let's talk about effective requirements gathering, and why it's the most fundamental part of any data analytics project.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Rachel Clark, Ben Archer, Ollie Honkkila
Join us for an enlightening session crafted for everyone from data citizens to wizards keen on navigating the intricacies of data protection regulations, including FERPA, HIPAA, and GDPR. We kick things off with a short foundational presentation, setting the stage for an immersive hands-on activity focused on real-world scenarios in the higher education sphere. This workshop will empower you with the skills to correctly identify and proficiently safeguard various data types.
Room: La Paz
Presented by:
Dan Klug
How HR Analytic reports can be used to help ASU departments to be more strategic and predictive in using HR data dashboards on recruitment, hiring, compensation, retention, turnover, benefits, on boarding, and employee performance. We will show current HR metric reporting and what the future holds. The knowledge that we will provide will assist departments to understand how they can use HR data to have an impact on decision making and performance
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Matthew Clements, Tia Loehnert, Adam Dahl
Taking a look at the WP Carey Executive Education Sales Report dashboard and how it came together using Alteryx to gather the data from the Stova API, store it in AUDB tables, and then creating a Tableau dashboard using that data source.
Key Links:
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Steven Yena, Amy Felix
In this session, we delve into the core of the iPOS exploring foundational concepts, recent advancements, and valuable data. The iPOS serves as a comprehensive tool for monitoring a graduate student's journey, encompassing progress, courses, and pivotal program achievements. We will highlight the following recent advancements:
- Student/staff advisor assignment relationship
- Professional development
- Alignment of student research with ASU’s design aspirations
- Introduction of Law programs
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Ishrat
Crafting data narratives are important to be in any data toolkit because make it easier for users to empathize with the data visualizations, creates and fosters curiosity and empowers users to propose solutions to the problems we are trying to solve. Using examples from the Decision Theater’s repertoire of visualizations designed to address complex questions such as water supply, conservation, and supply chain, this presentation will provide attendees with some concrete prompts for generating a data narrative to align with the problem they are trying to solve.
11:00 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: AWS
Room: Gold
Presented by: Victoria Polchinski
Do you know how to create data visualizations that are color-blind friendly? What about visualizations that work for people who use assistive technology (AT) or have low vision? In this session you’ll learn about Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and how to create visualizations that are usable by all
Room: La Paz
Presented by: Emily Eiff, Ralph Andrade
A variety of best practice suggestions, tips, and tricks we have implemented and/or documented at EdPlus (see HERE for a sample of topics that will likely be covered).
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Jennifer Hornsby
What data does Registrar Technology Services (Enrollment and Records) provide, how to use Enrollment and Records reports, how to get help
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Nicholas Estes
The LROC SOC at ASU has ~7PB of storage systems split between the Tempe and Poly campuses for DR. We operate a processing cluster of ~1000 CPU cores and have released to NASA PDS a dataset that is 1.5 PB in size. This presentation will give an overview of the systems and data involved in collecting, processing, managing, and monitoring this dataset as well as how this large dataset hosted at ASU gets to the scientific community.
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Erin Goertz, Megan Mowrer, Nicole Plachecki
College data knights and wizards, do you ever get a feeling you’re building something from scratch that should already exist? Or that your best idea and solutions could be serving a broader need? Come join the Fulton Schools of Engineering data team to talk about pooling resources and maximizing our efficiencies across colleges! What might we build better, together? If you’re in one of the colleges and pulling data from the Enterprise Data Warehouse, regardless of data area, we’d love for you to join us.
12:00 Lunch
1:10 p.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: Sahar Khan, Elisa Thomas
The Women's Power and Influence Index created by The Difference Engine at ASU was designed to rank women's power in the workplace. By evaluating publicly available data from companies, ASU students, faculty, and the Difference Engine team have created an index that will rank companies based on how equitable their workplace is for women.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Josh Johnson, Zihong Rong
LLMs are all the rage, and they seem to know something about coding -- how can we efficiently leverage them to make our data development and analysis jobs easier?
Room: La Paz
Presented by: Michelle Welker
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College had six years of survey results sitting in separate Excel spreadsheets, accessible to only a few people and with no way to report across time. This presentation will show how the MLFTC Office of Data Strategy, with the help of ET experts, designed a relational database that would allow for future expansion, created new fields to allow longitudinal reporting, and used Alteryx to transform the data and populate AUDB tables
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Christina Smith
This session explain the custom logic and sources used for fields found in the Enrollment and Records, Enrollment Tracking reports like: NRC, RNI, and Campus of Major used in student enrollment reports and also fields in the Class Funding reports such as the ABOR campus fields, course career, course level, classification, the hour band fields and state and non-state reported values.
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Tableau
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Aravind Srinivasan, Jodi Menees
The presentation will go over
- Barrett related tables & the corresponding metadata.
- How to identify honors students.
- Barrett Fact book Tableau visualization project (which is in progress)
2:10 p.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: Mike Sharkey, Samantha Carter
Students enroll in ASU degree programs and we commit to teaching them all about their field of study. Accounting majors learn about balance sheets. Computer Science majors learn about data structures. But how do we know they really learned these things? Sometimes a class grade or a GPA isn't detailed enough. The ET Data Analysis team worked with ASU's office of Evaluation to help tag assignments in Canvas so we can get a better handle on which learning outcomes students master
Room: Gold
From Static to Dynamic: Enhancing Data Visualization and Analysis with an Interactive Headcount Dashboard
Presented by: Nathan Nguyen, David Sullivan , Feminto Francis
We'll talk about the limitations of our old static headcount table and the process we went through in developing the new dashboard.
Topics include: Query development process, schemas/tables used, dynamic nature of the query (census vs. snapshot), demo of the dashboard e.g., proposing questions we've been asked and demonstrating how a user can obtain the answers from the dashboard.
Human Subjects Recruitment on Research Plus Me
Presented by: Amber Hedquist
ASU is at the forefront of innovation with Research Plus Me, a groundbreaking
platform that transforms how participants are recruited for research studies that require human participants. Research Plus Me can help research teams attract diverse participants, increase visibility, and save on recruitment time and costs. This presentation will focus on the goals of Research Plus Me in relation to human-subjects as a data source.
Room: La Paz
Presented by: Christopher Ozuna, Dawn Foley
The ASU Helios Decision Center for Educational Excellence has built a suite of data visualizations and tools for education partners across AZ. We often work with schools and districts directly. Recently, we embarked on redesigning and revitalizing our presentation style to help educational systems put data into action. By combining data visualization with expertise in curriculum and instruction, we are working to move from visualization to action resulting in meaningful impact.
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Jenniffer Hornsby
This presentation will cover the most commonly requested student records data and explore concepts such as New/Returning/Continuing, major, campus, primary record flags, enrollment status, academic level, and GPA. Note that this is about the Student Profile tables in data warehouse, PeopleSoft and ODS, it is not about the Student Profile information displayed in Salesforce.
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Phil Arcuria, Hamidreza Ghasem Damavandi, Krishna Gundu
This session will provide an overview of the recent proliferation of Generative AI, including a conceptual overview of how models learn to be creative. It will also include an open discussion on their potential application in Higher Education and beyond.
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Rob Yosowitz
This presentation will preview the Workday HCM data model and reporting tool. Workday HCM will be the new HR/Payroll/Benefits ERP system starting January 2025.
November 9, 2023
9:00 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: Gunner Tillemans
The presentation will review the StarRez housing and meal plan data that's available in the warehouse. Go over things to consider when using StarRez data and show examples of use case reports/dashboards from this.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Ferenc Feher, Richard Szpara
Showcasing new dashboard with data on research facility space utilization and miscellaneous facility info
Room: La Paz
Presented by: Vineet Gattani
The presentation introduces a comprehensive toolkit designed to enhance the quality of machine learning models. The presentation will delve into the motivation behind developing this toolkit, especially in high-stakes domains like defense, and medicine. The presentation will describe the various metrics and measures in our toolkit covering the three stages of ML model validation, providing ML developers with actionable information. Lastly, we discuss the commercial and societal impacts of our technology.
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Josh Johnson, Samantha Cater
An update of where the Actionable Analytics Data Mart and Enterprise Enriched DataSets projects stand, with a focus on the work done in the past year and plans for the next year. This is the presentation for you if you're having trouble querying student data from the warehouse.
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Sarah Lowen , Bailu Li, Kathy Cabizo
We will present a method we are using to cultivate data literacy and use data analytics to inform content revisions or interventions in courses. Our innovative approach involves using a book club to enhance data literacy among instructional designers who are data citizens and want to learn more. We will showcase use cases where we have leveraged data analytics to optimize learning experiences and content delivery. Attendees will be welcome to discuss data best practices for data citizens.
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Google
10:00 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Presented by: Edgar Febres
Use generative AI and machine learning to increase the value of your log files.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Qing Song, Helmy Alexcia
We will navigate the complexities of comparing data from diverse reporting sources. Join us in uncovering effective strategies for aligning methodologies, overcoming discrepancies, and addressing challenges that inform decision-making. Discover how this process holds the key to unlocking valuable insights in education.
Room: Ventana A
The ABCs of ASR's Data
Presented by: Phil Arcuria, Diana Ayala
This session will provide an overview of the new Actionable Analytics Data Mart ASR table and accompanying SSRS report. It will walk through how to use the data to answer some common ASR-related questions.
Data Software 101: An analysis of the most used data software and intelligence apps in each industry
Presented by: Khushi Wadhwani
The presentation is an analysis of the different kinds of software used for data handling and optimization. It will cover the most used software in each industry, the historical trends in data apps, and the upcoming trends.
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: David Sullivan
Join me on a fascinating journey through student enrollment analytics at the College of Health Solutions. From admissions to persistence, see how related dashboards can work together in a coordinated way to tell a more complete story about student enrollment and its evolution over time. The session will include live demos of Tableau dashboards and end with a discussion about projects currently under development and how they fit into our team's long-term goals.
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Paul Alvarado, Mike Sharkey, Josh Johnson
We'll cover more than you might want to know about the data we receive from our primary Learning Management System, and how you can use it.
11:00 a.m. Sessions
Room: Alumni
Sun Devil Sync - the Toolkit for Student Involvement Data
Presented by: Courtney Smith, Alecia Radatz
This session will cover how to use the Sun Devil Sync platform to collect, track, and report student engagement data. Attendees will hear how many departments are utilizing this tool to make their lives easier, connect with students effectively, and report on the value of their work. This session will also cover how to get this information from the data warehouse
What’s In Our Toolshed? Career Services Data Resources
Presented by: Tiffany Qianyang Shi
This session is an introduction to leveraging Career Services data resources, including the Career Services Engagements Dashboard, OPT/CPT Dashboard, FDS Dashboard, Job Market Insights, and Handshake student data tables.
Room: Gold
Presented by: Rachel Reed
In this engaging training, Rachel will show you how to use pivot tables and formulas to create graphs of the learning experience from Canvas grade book exports using Google Sheets.
Room: La Paz
Presented by: Briana Rajan
The approach entails orchestrating multiple LLMs, each addressing specific subtasks, akin to cohesive departments in an organization. This elevates output quality, particularly in question-answering and text generation. The presentation showcases the model's architecture, highlighting potential benefits in domain-specific data-driven LLM applications and advanced language processing discourse.
Room: Ventana A
Presented by: Jenna Graham
Ever wish you had a dashboard that contained all of your most requested data all in one place? Learn how New College has created such a dashboard and journey through the creative process as well as improvements that have been made after its creation.
Room: Ventana B
Presented by: Alteryx
Room: Ventana C
Presented by: Taylor Popovich, Andrew Altman
While our stakeholders might receive what they asked for, it may not always align with their actual needs. Through the exploration of practical examples, we will introduce strategies for data analysts to attain a deeper understanding of stakeholder needs and their intended data utilization. This understanding will pave the way for the automation of manual tasks, resulting in streamlined work processes that enhance efficiency and alleviate frustration.
12:00 p.m. Lunch & Sliced!
Back by popular demand, the 2023 Data Conference will host another Sliced! competition. Come cheer on your fellow data enthusiasts as they create data viz magic and compete for the coveted Sliced! championship!
Parking on campus
The ASU Memorial Union is located at 301 E Orange St on the Tempe ASU campus.
We highly encourage using alternative transportation such as carpool, golf cart or stretching your legs on a quick walk. If you will be driving, we have secured Lot 3 (near Gammage Auditorium) for our event allowing you to park here at no cost. This is available regardless if you have an ASU Permit.
Data Citizen
The Data Citizen is a capable user of data as a product. The Citizen’s focus is on analyzing the output of various datasets and reports rather than creating data content. Often tasked with answering questions or substantiating facts or assumptions by colleagues or leadership, the Data Citizen does not write code or use a BI Desktop, preferring to consume data in flat files, or pre-built reports that can be filtered and downloaded. Using data may be only a small part of this citizen’s job.
Data Apprentice
The Data Apprentice is a consumer of existing reports to perform analysis and derive insights. They may modify existing reports or perform basic ad hoc queries based on pre-built logic. The Data Apprentice may use a BI Desktop for some functions, like using a visual query tool, or may simply leverage existing assets. While skilled, data wrangling is usually not the apprentice’s primary job.
Data Knight
The Data Knight is a fearless creator of content across multiple platforms and methodologies. Adept at writing queries, creating tables, and scheduling jobs to refresh them, the Data Knight shows no fear of data monsters. The Knight will readily create reporting and visualizations to serve their department or the broader data community.
Data Wizard
The Data Wizard is an academic at the core. While this data magician may have a great understanding of many different tools, is most renowned for skill in data science, statistics, and modeling. Experienced with and capable of using multiple platforms and software, the Data Wizard typically uses them to derive inferences and analyses rather than producing data products or apps.