Cognos Lists Educational Institutions that use its Business Intelligence Products Cognos® Business Intelligence is at the Top of the Class -- Educational Institutions across North America turn to Cognos -- BURLINGTON, MA, January 4, 2001—Schools, universities, and boards of education across North America have chosen Cognos, (NASDAQ:COGN; TSE:CSN), the world's largest and most successful business intelligence company, to help them deliver A-grade service to their students, staff, and communities. These organizations use Cognos business intelligence (BI) to analyze student test results, upgrade and improve curricula, streamline management processes, and identify and forecast trends in student performance. "Educational institutions are under continual pressure to find innovative, yet cost-effective ways to organize, use, and share information to improve their services," said Ben Plummer, Cognos vice president of marketing. "Cognos business intelligence solutions are allowing schools and school boards to effectively use information as a value add, in order to allocate resources to their maximum impact and maintain fiscal responsibility. They are also offering parents and other constituents an easy way to access information on school and student performance in a very secure environment." Educational bodies at all levels have selected or deployed Cognos' business intelligence solutions, including: Yale University Georgetown University University of Pittsburgh University of Waterloo Erie 1 Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), New York University of South Carolina Merrimack Educational Center (MEC), Chelmsford, Mass. Toronto District School Board (TDSB) University of Guelph University of Texas University of Quebec Ontario College and Applications Service Savannah College of Arts and Design Ryerson Polytechnic University Erie 1 Board of Co-operative Educational Services (BOCES) The Western New York Regional Information Center (WNYRIC) at the Erie 1 Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) is an organization that provides services to over 264,000 students in 106 different New York state school districts. The WNYRIC deployed the Cognos solution to help personnel in member districts analyze student achievement on local and state assessments, student data from standardized tests, student and employee attendance, and data related to school finance. WNYRIC's primary goal was to enable truly data-driven planning and decision-making in area school districts. With the adoption of the Cognos solution, users of the WNYRIC service are able to report on and analyze the information stored in their data warehouse and form hypotheses about factors associated with the high student performance and cost effective district administration. School administrators can drill deep into the data to extract information about students in need of state-mandated academic intervention services. User class security allows BOCES to keep sensitive data safe. "Schools today face the ongoing challenge of helping all students to meet rising state standards while recognizing that children have a variety of needs and learning styles," said Betsy Moll, Associate Director, School Management Services at Erie 1 BOCES. "Cognos has enabled us to re-examine some of the myths about the ingredients for student success and the risk factors that have been linked with failure. We are very encouraged by the response we are getting from school administrators who are praising the Cognos approach, saying that they are saving time and gaining insight into the factors that make a difference in the education of our kids." University of Georgetown Georgetown University has purchased Cognos' Web-based business intelligence solution to perform query and analysis on their newly constructed data warehouse. They have completed their pilot demonstration and expect to deploy a financial data mart using the Cognos solution by the end of the year. The enterprise Cognos solution will provide users with access to consistent, accurate information across different campuses and the ability to perform ad hoc querying covering a wide range of financial measures for the University. Georgetown University's users will soon have the capability to answer a simple query like "how many registered students are in each school within each campus" in mere minutes instead of multiple offices spending time to replicate this query. The central theme of data warehousing at Georgetown University is information empowerment. The university's goal is to provide information to more people to make better, more-informed decisions. It is expected that the Cognos solution will also assist with reducing the report development burden on the IT department. "Before piloting the data warehouse and the solutions provided by Cognos, our methods for effectively retrieving or utilizing stored data were arduous at best," said Mark Drauszewski, manager, data warehouse at Georgetown University. "With Cognos' business intelligence solution, the power to view, analyze, and share essential business information will soon lie in the hands of the user." Erie 1 BOCES and the WNYRIC Established in 1948 by the state legislature, a BOCES provides quality, cost-effective educational services to school districts in New York State. There are 38 BOCES statewide. While Erie 1 BOCES serves approximately 73,600 students in the 19 component school districts surrounding the city of Buffalo, the Regional Information Center housed as Erie 1 BOCES serves the 106 component school districts of 5 Western New York BOCES. Georgetown University Founded in 1789, the same year the U.S. Constitution took effect, Georgetown is the nation's oldest Catholic university. What began as Georgetown College, a small gathering of 12 students and a handful of professors, has grown into a major international university that includes four undergraduate schools respected graduate programs, a law school and a medical school. The vision of Georgetown founder John Carroll, S.J., still guides the university in its commitment to Catholic, Jesuit education in the liberal arts tradition, with respect for diversity and open dialogue in the pursuit of truth. For more information, please visit the Web site at www.georgetown.edu. from http://www.cognos.com/news/rel_360.html ### Cognos and the Cognos logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Note to Editors: Copies of previous Cognos press releases and Corporate and product information are available on Cognos' World Wide Web (WWW) site at http://www.cognos.com, and at PR Newswire's site at http://www.prnewswire.com. Copyright © 2000 Cognos Incorporated