from DSSResources.com

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                          DSS News
                       by D. J. Power
                November 5, 2000 -- No. 14
         A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM
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     Check the Book Store at http://dssresources.com
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Featured:
* DSS Wisdom
* Ask Dan! -- What Data Warehouse software and configurations are        
       used in universities?
* What's New at DSSResources.COM
* DSS News Stories
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and more than 360 subscribers to this newsletter. Please forward this 
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DSS Wisdom
"Properly designed for appropriate problems, these [management decision] 
systems can have a significant impact on the decision process.  This is 
of importance because most of management's decisions, the unstructured 
decisions, have not been well supported by analysis and information in 
the past.  There is still a great deal to be learned, but no major 
company can afford not to have some active program in this area.  The 
technology is available and becoming less expensive, the major concepts 
and issues are clear; what is lacking is management's understanding of 
these concepts and their willingness to become involved. (pp. 152-53)"
from Scott Morton, Michael S., Management Decision Systems: 
Computer-Based Support for Decision Making. Boston: Harvard University, 
1971. 
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Ask Dan!
What Data Warehouse software and configurations are used in 
universities?
The best source for finding some information on this topic is at 
http://www.georgetown.edu/users/allanr/dwconfig/ . Ron Allen maintains 
the Web page for the EDUCAUSE Decision Support/Data Warehouse 
Constituency group. Some of the information is out-of-date, but the new 
policy is to post the date when data is entered.
I'll  summarize the data warehouse configurations for 40 U.S. 
Universities that are posted at the Georgetown Web site.  
Databases: Oracle is the dominant database in use for university 
datawarehouses. More than half of the universities reporting had some 
version of Oracle. The most recent version in use is Oracle 8i (at only 
2 universities). IBM's DB2 was the next most popular database with 5 
installations. Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and NCR Teradata are 
used at 2 universities each.
Data Modeling Tools: Most universities are not using data modeling 
tools. ERWin is used by DW teams at 4 universities.
 
Query Tool: Brio and the Microsoft products (Access and Excel) are the 
most commonly used query and analysis tools. Fifteen universities report 
using a Brio product.  Only one seems to have implemented Brio Insight 
accessed through the Brio Portal. Single universities are using Crystal 
Reports, Hyperion, Cognos’ Impromptu, Hummingbird BI/Query, 
MicroStrategy, Business Objects, SPSS, and SAS products. A few 
universities have plans to migrate to Cognos products.
File Configurations to Users: A Star Schema is the most common file 
configuration reported.   Some schools more generally indicate they are 
using denormalized tables and summary files. 
  
Systems Covered: The most common systems included in the university data 
warehouse are financial, human resource, courses and students.  Some 
schools have other systems in the warehouse like financial aid, student 
fees, research, property, alumni development, admissions, and 
purchasing. Some schools claim to have integrated the data in the 
warehouse.
Ron Allen reported in a recent email (Thu, 26 Oct 2000) that Georgetown 
is at the "dawn" of implementing their datawarehouse. He said we are 
"just beginning to build our production marts after developing 
successful prototypes". He notes Georgetown has one manager, "one 
systems analyst, one programmer, ½ data base administrator and we are 
recruiting a data administrator" assigned to the DW projects.
So what is the big picture on data warehousing in universities.  The 40 
universities that reported data are in various stages of warehouse 
development and the sophistication of the technology varies enormously. 
Universities seem behind U.S. Fortune 2000 companies in implementing 
data warehouses/OLAP and especially Web-Based DSS.
P. S. Please send me your comments or post them to the DSSResources.COM 
Bulletin Board.
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What's New! at DSSResources.COM
11/03/2000 Updated DSSResources.COM Vendor List.
10/31/2000 Posted Chapter 9 DSS Book Slide Show.
10/29/2000 Updated and posted Chapter 10 "Building Knowledge-Driven DSS 
and Mining Data" of the DSS Hyperbook.
10/25/2000 Posted Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 DSS Book Slide Shows.
10/25/2000 Added an AIS banner ad to 4 pages at DSSResources.COM
10/24/2000 Updated HTML/Programming Links page.
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DSS News Stories - Oct. 21 to Nov. 05, 2000
Note:  The full press releases are available at DSSResources.COM.
11/03/2000 Aberdeen Group report argues Collaborative Product Commerce 
software may revolutionize product innovation and manufacturing 
processes.
11/02/2000 Oracle's E-Business Suite won the Intelligent Enterprise 
Readers' Choice Award in 3 categories.
11/01/2000 Bon Appetit chose Instill Purchase Insight to provide data 
warehousing and business intelligence services for 160
units.
10/31/2000 DM Review Top 10 business intelligence vendors will be 
announced by live Webcast on November 17, 2000.
10/31/2000 Polycom ViaVideo for Desktop and Laptop PCs improves 
productivity and teamwork.
10/30/2000 Jim and David Matheson, authors of "The Smart Organization", 
are forming a new decision support company
called SmartOrg. Inc.
10/27/2000 Microsoft’s network was hacked and intruders may have stolen 
code for software.
10/27/2000 A telework website, ExecutiveWorks.com offers on-line demos 
of its virtual office management products.
10/26/2000 AlphaBlox announced a Web-based, non-client/server 
spreadsheet that connects to live corporate data sources.
10/25/2000 Informix Software announces Red Brick Decision Server 6.1; 
its new features pave the way for improved decision
support.
10/24/2000 Peregrine Systems expands knowledge management capability in 
next-generation employee self service suite.
10/24/2000 Virtual Gold provides MLB.com with statistical facts mined 
from World Series game data.
10/23/2000 ClearForest announced ClearSight, a Web-based Application 
Service that uses semantic, rules-based technology to read and analyze 
text.
10/23/2000 AccuSoft announced the new version of its innovative 
web-based document management solution - NetVue 3.1.
10/23/2000 John Galt Solutions, Inc. introduced the ForecastX Engine, a 
comprehensive Web-based package designed to manage and automate the 
demand planning and forecasting processes.
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