Data integration capability is non-existent in most of South Africa's higher education institutions (SAHEIs), and even though universities have large amounts of data at their disposal few university managers understand the benefits of BI.
This situation has resulted in multiple data sources in institutions that often contradict each other and usually the data is unprocessed and therefore of little value in the institutional decision making activities.
So says Alfred Mutanga, manager: Centurion Office and Africa Region at IDSC Consulting, who will be presenting on 'A situated business intelligence framework for South African higher education institutions' at the ITWeb Business Intelligence Summit on 14 and 15 March at The Forum in Bryanston.
His presentation is based on a research study that caters for a gap in methodological implementations for BI systems in South African higher education. Called "A Context-Aware Business Intelligence Framework (CABIF) for South African Higher Education Institutions", the research was conducted between 2013-2016, as part of Mutanga's PhD studies at University of Venda.
"The implementation of BI initiatives in higher education using the one-size-fit-all approach does not work, hence this research advocates for contextualised or situated BI activities."
He says currently, BI implementations in SAHEIs is predominantly vendor-driven. "The premise for the implementation of a BI framework in SAHEIs is to leverage the existing ICT investments at the institution by enabling a user-friendly Web reporting and decision support modelling through the analysis of various institutional data assets."
According to him, the significance of the research is highlighted by separating the BI domain within the SAHEIs. "In that way this research managed to delineate the status quo of BI within the SAHEIs BI reality space, and expressed the significance of BI contextualism or situation within the sector. The CABIF is a theory, knowledge and solution, while it can contribute immensely to the BI design, development, implementation and evaluation within the SAHEIs. It is my view that a BI solution signifies accrual of BI knowledge, hence the two are inseparable."
Mutanga's talk will demonstrate the researcher's efforts to put into practice the theoretical foundations of information systems research, in order to come up with a CABIF, for SAHEIs.
"Overall, my talk will provide myriad conceptual and practical insights into how contextualised aspects of BI directly or indirectly impact on the quality of managerial decision-making within various core business contexts of SAHEIs, and will clearly show the delegates the importance establishing BI technical affordance within the SAHEIs by developing situated BI events and BI generative mechanisms within the sector."
Share