reporting, the easy way

Reporting on your OSP Form Data...the Easy Way

[email protected], [email protected] Wonks

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Reporting on your OSP Form Data...the Easy Way

[email protected], [email protected] Wonks

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Making it Suck Less


11th Sakai Conference -‐ June 15-‐17, 2010

Let’s talk about Reporting

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Why Bother With Reporting?

• What’s the big deal?• Why collect all this data?

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Why Bother With Reporting?

• What’s the big deal?• Why collect all this data?

• We can make decisions based on patterns in the information

• But if you can’t get information out, then putting data in is a waste of everyone’s time and effort!

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A Sample Evaluation Form

• Imagine using an Evaluation form as shown here:• For this to be useful you

must be able to aggregate all these evaluations...• per course• per academic year• per student• per evaluator• etc

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So Create Some Reports Then

• Let’s take a look at what’s going on, "rst

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Sakai Already Has a “Reports” ToolOf Its Own

Oh Look...

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Sakai’s Built-In “Reports” Tool

• Why not just use that, then?• Once it’s set up you can pull lots of useful

patterns from your data

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Sakai’s Built-In “Reports” Tool

• Why not just use that, then?• Once it’s set up you can pull lots of useful

patterns from your data

• “Once it’s set up”!• Enormous investment, attention, resources to get it

working• You don’t have to be IU—but it helps :)

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The OSP “Reports” Tool

• Here’s what it looks like after you install it in your worksite...

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So... Now What?

• Can you see how to create a report?• What will you need to know to get it working?

• Can you hook it up to Crystal Reports or Cognos tools or Pentaho and get straight to your Evaluation-form "elds? Nope.

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How do you Use it?

• To use the OSP “Reports” tool here’s all you need to know in order to create a new report...• XML data structures and operations• XSL to transform the XML• XSD to see where the data comes from• SQL to issue queries to the database• Be Command-line Savvy, and have backstage

access to the Sakai server

• ...for EVERY NEW REPORT!

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Yikes!

That’s a PAINFUL learning curve!

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Why Is OSP Reporting So Challenging?

• When you build a new XSD form from scratch it could have any (ANY!) structure

• The programmers couldn’t predict in advance what data structures would be needed

• So OSP Collects form data in big, amorphous, black-box XML chunks as a universal “solution”

• For example:

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One of Sean’s Awesome AAC&U VALUE Rubric Forms

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Get it from h+p://www.openEdPrac7ces.org


http://www.openEdPractices.org

http://www.openEdPractices.org


• The actual data collected for the "ve “axes” in this form are shown below the grid:

Each Row in that Grid Represents a “Field”

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This is Why the Programmers Opted to Store XML Blobs

• So the Sakai Programmers let us create any form structure we want

• The result gets stored as an XML blob, such as:

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<eval-‐form> <organiza7on> 3 </organiza7on> <language> 4 </language> <delivery> 4 </delivery> <support> 3 </support> <message> 4 </message> <commentary> Great improvement... </commentary> <ra7ng> 3.6 </ra7ng></eval-‐form>


• Difficult to conjure a database arrangement to accommodate all these different structures


A Contact Info Form Will Look Completely Different

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<contact-‐info> <name> <first>Bob</first> <last>Smith</last> </name> <emails> <work>[email protected]</work> <personal>[email protected]</work> </emails></contact-‐info>

All these different formsare too amorphous forthe programmers to predict!


mailto:[email protected]





Forms can Vary Widely

• Other forms are totally different• Résumé/CV, Contact Info Form, Re!ection Form...

• The programmers knew we’d conjure up all kinds of different XSD form structures

• So the programmers chose to just store the XML• But XML is for transport, not storage...

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PROBLEM: How can you Reach the Field-Level Data?

• If you want an average or total of a particular "eld for all students...

• It’s buried inside all this text!

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<eval-‐form> <organiza7on> 3 </organiza7on> <language> 4 </language> <delivery> 4 </delivery> <support> 3 </support> <message> 4 </message> <commentary> Great improvement... </commentary> <average> 3.6 </average></eval-‐form>



You Could use XSL to parse it...

• XSL is designed to transform XML to something else (often HTML)

• But there’s a STEEP learning curve there• Requires IT mojo and lots of caffeine

• Sure would be nice if we could just use a point-and-click reporting tool like Crystal Reports or Cognos or Pentaho...

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The Report-Enabling Gizmo to the Rescue!

Pentaho, Crystal, Cognos and more!

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It makes your Form Data Reachable

• It makes everything SQL-selectable!• Don’t need to learn XML, XSL, XSD, backstage

command-line hooey• Cognos? Pentaho? Crystal Reports?

No problemo

• We came up with some sample reports to illustrate:

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A Sample “Cognos Impromptu” Report

• Who’s getting what scores?• Marie is squeaking by Blaise

• And who’s giving what scores?• Hmm, let’s see this another way...

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Another Example Cognos Report

• Chip is givingeveryone aperfect score!

• Time to havea talk withhim...

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Reports like this Help you Make Decisions and Take Action

• Here we can see one evaluator is likely not taking his task seriously

• Reporting enables you to see stuff like this and then take action to "nd out more, or to work it out

• Sure is easy to come up with reports like this if you can use Cognos or Crystal or Pentaho

• ...which you can’t do when the data is buried inside XML blobs

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Let’s See the OSPTOOL Gizmo in its Element

• Once the tool is installed in your !admin workspace:• Open the OSPTOOL there• Specify which forms to process• Click “Parse Selected Forms”

• Kick back, be awesome, bask in the accolades

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How to use the “!admin” Interface

• Select which formsto parse

• Then “Parse” them!

• Let’s follow anexample...

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Create a New Filled-Out Form Instance

• Evaluator responds to a Student Submission:

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Normal workflow:Student’s cell isnow LOCKED

Evaluator fills out Evalua7on form



Now “Parse” the Chosen Forms

• Visit !admin worksite

• Make sure your chosen form is selected for Parsing

• Then... Parse!

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Now you can just REFRESH your Reports

• Evaluator added new Evaluations for 2 Students!

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« BEFORE REFRESH

AFTER REFRESH »...Then a quick PARSE...



How Does This Work?

Magic!

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Reporting Tools Require Access to SQL Fields

• If the data is available at the SQL-"eld level then off-the-shelf reporting tools like Cognos or Pentaho or Crystal can reveal patterns

• The OSPtool Gizmo makes all the form "elds available directly via SQL• (You do still need to know SQL, or have access to

someone who does, but now you can forget the XSD and XSL and command-line voodoo)

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Common Patterns in All Form Structures

• Sure, some forms have text "elds for email, others have numeric "elds for scores...

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<contact-‐info> <name> <first>Bob</first> <last>Smith</last> </name> <emails> <work>[email protected]</work> <personal>[email protected]</work> </emails></contact-‐info>

<eval-‐form> <organiza7on> 3 </organiza7on> <language> 4 </language> <delivery> 4 </delivery> <support> 3 </support> <message> 4 </message> <commentary> Great improvement... </commentary> <average> 3.6 </average></eval-‐form>









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<contact-‐info> <name> <first>Bob</first> <last>Smith</last> </name> <emails> <work>[email protected]</work> <personal>[email protected]</personal> </emails></contact-‐info>

contact-‐info

name emails

first last work personal

But each field elementhas a “parent” elementand belongs to a form









• But all "eld elements have a position inside the form data

• All "eld elements have a “parent” element• All "eld elements have a root-level “form” element• Why not leverage that?

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That’s Exactly what the OSPtool Gizmo Does

• Each "eld knows what its “parent” is• Easy to determine the “root” form for any "eld• That’s it!

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The Good and the Bad

So here’s the upshot

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The Good Parts

• It’s freely available as Source Code• https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/serensoft/

• Your report-writers will only need to know SQL• Any off-the-shelf SQL reporting package will work• Pentaho• Cognos• Crystal Reports• etc

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https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/serensoft/



Even Better

• Wouldn’t it be great if your OSP form data were stored this way by default instead of having to go through a separate “parsing” process?

• But I digress... :)

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The Bad Parts

• Does it scale?• Absolutely no idea, please test it!

• Is the !admin interface elegant and clean?• Um, no

• It’s not “live”• Updated (and new) forms require re-parsing before

the data is visible in SQL

• Does it auto-run (via Quartz jobs)?• Not at the moment, “Parse” is manual-only

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Please Use it and Get to the Patterns in your Data!

• Please install it and try it out• You won’t need an army of XSL/XML/XSD

engineers, only someone with some SQL skills

• Have fun Unravelling your XML!

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will.trillich @ serensoft.com

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/sakai10


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11th Sakai Conference -‐ June 15-‐17, 2010 45


reporting, the easy way

Technology

osp form data

xml data structures

ection form

actual data

new xsd form

osp reporting

contact info form

sample evaluation form