Why Should Data Analysis Be a Part of School ERP Software?

Listen to what your school ERP software is trying to tell you

What is Data Analysis?

Data analysis is the cleaning, processing, and manipulation of data in order to arrive at conclusions, unearth trends, or support business decisions with reliable data. There are many forms of data analysis – new techniques and methods emerge daily that enable institutions to understand their ecosystems more widely and deeply. Understanding your institution’s needs and the availability of information at hand determine which of these methods would benefit you the most and result in the most useful information.

How is data analysis used in general?

Essentially, data analysis helps institutions make more informed decisions, devise solutions based on evidence rather than bias, and helps build a more data-driven culture internally and externally. Building a data-rich culture in one’s institution enables its people and stakeholders to build a thinking culture that relies on hard facts rather than hearsay or nebulous feeling. This results in a population that values data, precision and thoughtful strategy rather than impulsive and often outdated thinking.

How could data analysis be used in education?

The educational ecosystem is no different in terms of how it can benefit from data analysis. This is an area where learning is constantly evolving based on new teaching methods being developed, varying needs of students, and an ever-changing world that schools need to prepare them for. Data analysis would help remove a lot of fear, doubt, and uncertainty and help illuminate better ways to do things at all levels.

What are the benefits of using data analysis in education?

Using data analysis in education helps us understand our classrooms and educational institutions better. For instance, personalisation of education is increasingly seen as key to better educational outcomes. This sounds like a time and costs expensive process, where overheads overwhelm the desire to make it happen. Data analysis, however, can come to the rescue. Using your school ERP software, you can monitor what sort of assignments your student does better on, what methodologies seem to work, and what subject areas naturally interest them. Then building a content repository of such course materials would be the logical next step. This results in the better classroom and home learning engagement from a student – all because you took the time to analyse student behaviour with regards to course materials.

Who benefits from data analysis in education?

It is not just students who benefit from data analysis in the school. All stakeholders in the education ecosystem can gain from relying more on data. A data-rich school is one that is forward-looking – one that is anticipating educational trends rather than just reacting to them. Teachers are better able to analyse each of their classrooms’ educational achievements, students are better able to measure their performance and make decisions on what to focus on, administrators are able to improve the efficiency of their processes by analysing user actions when interacting with various services provided, and management is future ready thanks to a wealth of knowledge available at their fingertips. Your school ERP software can be instrumental in categorising the various kinds of data by the people it benefits at the very starting point. We elaborate on this point further below.

How tools do you need to perform data analysis?

In addition to a person with the skillset to perform an accurate analysis, does wanting to become a more data-rich school require specialised tools? What about the cost of such an investment? Is it worth it?

These are all important questions to ask in one’s endeavour to become a data-rich organisation. Data analysis must be looked at as an investment in the future. The long-term benefits are worth the cost. It is not necessary to have a massive outlay towards data analytics in order to start seeing results. For educational institutions, your existing school ERP software might be enough to get started.

What kind of data analytics functions can school ERP software to perform?

Your school ERP software is your starting point on your data analysis journey. A robust school ERP software would allow you to start collecting information about student and institutional actions straight out of the box.

For students, analysing their progress by analysis their examination performance would help you have a better idea of your student’s strengths and potential areas for improvement. This would indicate what subjects to focus on for future learning, which can further be monitored and idea by your school ERP software.

For teachers, being able to keep track of students learning by analysis their engagement in coursework, homework, and group discussions is a good way to better understand the learning methodology that works for them. Most students have a learning method that works best for them – why not focus on using that method integrated with your school ERP software as much as possible in order to accelerate learning?

For administrators, processes can often be prone to human errors and this is where your school ERP software really shines. But a secondary benefit to this is the wealth of user data that is collected when these processes are systemised or automated. You are able to pinpoint with accuracy exactly where users fall through the cracks, falter, or run into issues. This helps one to improve processes until they are as intuitive and unintrusive, reducing the burden on human administrators.

Finally, for management – a cross section of these analyses performed at various levels help them to ensure their institution is future ready. Being proactive, rather than reactive results in an institution that is not constantly playing catch up, but instead is able to automatically provide a holistic learning and teaching environment for its members.

Your school ERP software provides a one window answer to all questions about the direction your institution is moving in by providing data and revealing trends specific to your school. Data analysis thus makes your school ready to produce scholars ready to take on the world.