Transforming data to action 1.

Data collection Three-tier data will be collected separately and stored into the data warehouse; MOEs database. 2. Data mining 2.1. Data cleaning 2.2. Data selection Data collected from every source will be too large to process everything, thus the need of selecting the data that are relevant to the analysis task from the database. 2.3. Data mining 3. Data representation 4. Knowledge The importance of human

Popular queries and reports Reports Individual academic results Students result for each subject throughout his/her academic years. Comparison with the overall cohort, i.e. ranking CCA records Students co-curriculum activities, achievements records Teachers feedback Teachers feedback for every subject throughout his/her academic years Student/Child performance against the schools cohort Students result for each subject throughout his/her academic years. Comparison with the overall cohort, i.e. ranking School performance comparison against other schools Comparison across all schools by region/school type, based on school achievements, students results, cut-off points, student-teacher ratio, CCA, etc. i.e. ranking Student/Child attendance report Students attendance record, track childs school activities Students performance across classes Students results and progress of the term comparison against other classes Students attendance Students attendance record, track students activities Staffs past records Staffs past student records (i.e. results) by subject/year School performance against all other schools Comparison across all schools by region/school type, based on school achievements, students results, objectives, etc. i.e. ranking Staff performance Disciplinary records Schools record of student discipline across classes/year. Example, number of caught smokers, gang fight, etc. i.e. % improvement Students performance across years Students results across all schools, by year/school/subject. School performance Comparison across all schools by region/school type, based on school achievements, students results, objectives, etc. i.e. ranking, popularity, public feedback Disciplinary records Schools record of student discipline across school/year/region. Example, number of caught smokers, gang fight, etc. i.e. highest occurrence of one problem Users Student

1.

2. 3.

1.

Parents

2.

3. 1.

Teaching staff of institutions

2. 3. 1.

Administration staff of institutions

2. 3.

1. 2.

Ministerial staff

3.

Actionable tasks In order to standardize the data collection, analysis and decision making, there is a need to first set-up the right infrastructure. Most importantly we need to have a data warehouse to store all the data coming from various sources (institutions, admin, others, etc.). With these data, I will recommend using established enterprise software such as SAS that has various functionalities to support automated data warehouse function. These tools (SAS) will be able to automatically process the data with the required input from user. For instance, user has to query a specific report and it will able to automatically retrieve this data from the data warehouse. Thereafter, we will have a separate application as a front-end user interface that able present this analysis (i.e. chart, reports) to the users at the same time sending query to the system.

Case Scenario: Every year/semester, all schools will report operational details to MOE system. However, Principal Peter only knows his school discipline rates, so now he wants to find out whether his schools discipline rate is acceptable compared to other schools in Singapore. 1. Peter goes to the system (D) and select School discipline rates 2. System D will send the query to the application system 3. Application system will identify the relevant required data and retrieve from data warehouse (i.e. discipline records of various cases from year x to current for all x number of schools) 4. Application receive the data and SAS will process the data and generate report (i.e. arrange by ranking, the least number of disciplinary actions occurred in the past x years for all x schools) 5. Application system will send this result to system D 6. System D will display the result (chart) to Peter (i.e highlighting where the peters school rank) Peter will now see his schools ranking across all schools in Singapore. From here, he will be able to make necessary decision. He knows that he needs to improve the schools discipline especially on gang fight as it is one of the schools with most number of cases of gang fight in past 2 years. E.g Setting up counseling department, get social workers and working with teachers to help students to solve problems before they escalate into violence.

Appendix A

External sources
MOE/Admin Tier 3

MOE/Admin

Tier 2 Data Warehouse Application (Generate Reports)

Presentation (Graphical User Interface)

Public

School/Institutions

Tier 1 School/Institutions
Application

Data selection

Data Cleaning

Data Transformation

Data Mining

External sources
MOE/Admin Tier 3

MOE/Admin

Tier 2 Data Warehouse Application (Generate Reports)

Presentation (Graphical User Interface)

Public

School/Institutions

Tier 1 School/Institutions
Application

Cleaning/ Integration

Selection/ Transformation

Mining

Pattern Evaluation