Assignment 1 – Report (70%)
Your role is to act as a Business Intelligence consultant for a business organisation* of your own choice (e.g. university, banking, health, retail or airline as a business). You could invent a case study of an organisation; however, we suggest you find a case study of an existing organisation. Your chosen organisation could already have a BI solution that is out of date or may not have a BI solution as yet, but has a substantial number of data stores. You should research and critically evaluate methodologies, theories, processes, strategies and technologies in order to produce a feasible design of a Business Intelligence solution for your case study organisation. In your report you should present evidence of BI aspects you have considered for the organisation.
The assignment is an Individual report. The word count should not exceed 3000 words.
As a suggestion, your assignment should address the following:
An introduction and background to the case study organisation. (200 words)
A Literature Review (1000 words) in order to evidence and evaluate the most suitable strategy and technology for the organisation.
- Critically appraise and outline the current issues, trends and practices in Business Intelligence (BI) applicable for your organisation, using literature to support your discussion.
- Discuss and evaluate the role of data and data sources for your organisation
- Outline the major changes you would anticipate in your organisation when implementing your BI solution.
- What aspects of the organisational structure would your BI solution impact upon, and how?
- Identify the internal and external drivers and challenges for your chosen BI implementation.
Methodology (1000 words)
- Evaluate the BI project lifecycle and suitable methodology and approaches for your BI strategy
- Identify the model(s) used and evaluate their effectiveness in order to produce an appropriate BI design solution for your case study organisation.
Data Analysis and Visualization (300 words)
- Research into appropriate Data Analysis approach and present Visualisation model (s) on a sample dataset (e.g. you can use open source data) to support your arguments which you have presented in the literature review.
Conclusion (500)
- Alongside the report conclusion, provide THREE key recommendations for the chosen organisation. Suggest solutions for your recommendations that would be part of a BI implementation solution.
| Assessment/
Learning Outcome |
Distinction
70% & above |
Merit
60 – 69% |
Pass (Higher)
50 – 59% |
Pass (Lower)
40 – 49% |
Unsatisfactory/fail
39% or less |
|
| Introduction
(10 marks) |
Excellent rationale for the research topics, justifying a clear and coherent set of objectives for the assignment. Excellent introduction to the case study organisation. | Clear rationale for the research supported by a set of coherent objectives for the assignment. | Reasonable rationale for the research supported by some clear objectives for the assignment. Good introduction to the case study organisation. | Vague rationale for the research supported by vague objectives for the assignment.
|
Very unclear rationale for the research supported by very unclear objectives for the assignment. | |
| Literature Survey –
(30 marks) |
Excellent demonstration of an understanding of the chosen research area; a critical and insightful survey of the current situation and relevant literature; an excellent structure and coherence for the presentation of your literature review. Excellent application to the case study organisation. | A very good report which fulfils most of the requirements for this task. Good application to the case study organisation made. | A good report which fulfils some of the requirements for this task. Application to the case study organisation made is incomplete | A satisfactory report which fulfils few of the requirements for this task. No application to the case study organisation made. | A report which fulfils only very limited number of the requirements for this task. Text not referenced. | |
| Assessment/
Learning Outcome |
Distinction
70% & above |
Merit
60 – 69% |
Pass (Higher)
50 – 59% |
Pass (Lower)
40 – 49% |
Unsatisfactory/fail
39% or less |
|
| Methodology and Approaches
(20 marks) |
The student has demonstrated a sound justification for the methodology adopted and demonstrating originality and a self-critical evaluation of effectiveness. Excellent design presented for the overall BI solution presented. Excellent application to the case study organisation.
|
The student has demonstrated a sound justification for the methodology and approaches adopted. Design presented with some opportunities for improvement of the overall BI solution presented. Good application to the case study organisation made. | The student has demonstrated some justification for the methodology and approaches adopted . BI implementation design presented with major issues. Application to the case study organisation made is incomplete. | The student has demonstrated weak justification for the methodology and approaches adopted. BI implementation design not presented. Application to the case study No application to the case study organisation made. | Adopts an inappropriate and poorly justified methodology and approaches. Text not referenced. | |
| Data Analysis and Visualisation
(20 marks) |
All the results from the data analysis have been presented using visualization tool and references to the literature. Excellent data selection for the case study organisation.
Have effectively used a variety of tools and techniques for your investigation. Have shown rigorous and excellent empirical evidence of your research.
|
Almost all the results from the data analysis have been presented using visualization tool and references to the literature. | Some of the results from the data analysis have been presented using visualization tool and references to the literature. | Very limited results from the data analysis have been presented using visualization tool and references to the literature. | VThe results from the data analysis have not been presented using visualization tools and references to the literature. The student does not relate any results found to existing theory and fails to make reasoned suggestions for further development. Text not referenced. | |
| Conclusions –
(10 marks) |
Excellent summary of the findings of your report; have demonstrated an excellent grasp of the key issues that have arisen from your review; have made excellent three recommendations for further research and/or practical responses. | Very good summary of the findings of your report; have demonstrate a very good grasp of most of the key issues that have arisen in your research; make some useful recommendations for practical responses and/or further research, for the case study organisation. | Good summary of the findings of your report; have demonstrate a good grasp of some key issues that have arisen in your research; make few useful recommendations for practical responses made for the case study organisation.
|
Satisfactory summary of the findings of your report; have demonstrate some grasp of limited number of key issues that have arisen in your research; make limited useful recommendations for practical responses and/or further research. | Unsatisfactory summary of the findings of your report; have not demonstrated grasp of key issues that have arisen in your research; have made little attempt to make recommendations for practical responses and/or further research. Text not referenced. | |
| Citations and Bibliography
(10 marks) |
Have very appropriately embedded citations. Provide a list of correctly formatted references drawn from a broad range of resources (particular quality ones), with a strong bias towards recent publications. Good choice of the case study. | Most of the embedded citations are appropriate. Provide a list of correctly formatted references drawn from a several resources. | Only a few of the embedded citations are appropriate. Provide a list of mostly correctly formatted references drawn from a several resources. | Very limited appropriately embedded citations. Provide a list of mostly incorrectly formatted references drawn from a very limited range. Case study choice not thought through. . | Little or no attempt to include embedded citations. Provide a very limited list of correctly formatted references. Text not referenced. | |
Your general understanding and application of a subject area will improve the more you ‘read around’. In the final year of studies, we expect to be confident in researching literature on topics and appreciating the varied views and insights this may offer – so the suggestions below are just that, suggestions and recommendations.
Data and databases – of interest
- TDWI – The Data Warehousing Institute provides education, training, certification, news, and research for executives and information technology (IT) professionals worldwide. Founded in 1995, TDWI is the premier educational institute for business intelligence and data warehousing. Join their mailing list by visiting the website http://www.tdwi.eu/home/ or this one http://tdwi.org/Home.aspx
- First Monday: First Monday is one of the first openly accessible, peer–reviewed journals on the Internet, solely devoted to the Internet. Since its start in May 1996, First Monday has published 1,374 papers in 217 issues; these papers were written by 1,877 different authors. First Monday is indexed in Communication Abstracts, Computer & Communications Security Abstracts, DoIS, eGranary Digital Library, INSPEC, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, LISA, PAIS, and other services
- http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/index
- Jeffery Deaver, The Broken Window published 2008 by Hodder & Stoughton ISBN 978 0 340 99370 5. This book is a thriller, the criminal uses information and data mining to frame his victims. It has some interesting observations on the importance of data, the volumes of data, meta-data, data mining and forensic evidence. Available in the library.
- TV programs such as CSI, Numb3rs often offer some good insights into how data/statistics are used to identify suspects or ‘profile’, gain data mining. You need to pick your episode though.
- Youtube shouldn’t be overlooked for videos of lectures or ‘how to’s (eg normalization, data mining)
- The Guardians ‘data’ blog has some interesting data analysis stories. http://www.guardian.co.uk/data, their technology sections also include some good podcasts.
- Computer Weekly is available in the library and on: http://www.computerweekly.com/Home/. It is The Computing paper, lots of current information, white papers and jobs. A good place to research a company (with respect to their IT systems) before you go for an interview.
Note that when referencing sources such as those above, some may be subjective (opinion rather that fact).
