Student Records Data Warehouse Project
Notes of Meeting 28 March 2003
Present: Keith Zimmerman, Ray Burnley, Sue Milward
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With the demise of SAM, it has been recognised that there is a
requirement for access to central student records data for some
schools to enable them to produce certain reports, publish data to the
web and run peripheral systems.

This is to be a relatively short-term solution while the full
functionality of the SITS system (including eVision) is implemented
over the next two years. Schools have committed to using SITS for all
student based processes where the functionality exists and as it is
developed.

Two options are available:
1. Allow direct read-only links into the central SITS database
2. On a regular (daily?) basis extract core data from the SITS
   database and load into a read-only data warehouse for access by
   individual schools as required.

Option 2) has been selected as the preferred option for the following
reasons:
 * Direct links into the central database may have an adverse effect on
   performance
 * Direct links into the central database has potential security
   implications
 * The SITS database consists of many tables often with obscure field
   names
 * A separate data warehouse offers the option to extract data which is
   not available in SITS from other systems, e.g. staff data.

Following an initial meeting, the following points were noted:
 * SHiPSS would require access to this data by September
 * Maths may require data sooner. Emma to contact Maths for their
   deadlines
 * Other schools may have similar data requirements. The SITS project
   team will evaluate
 * Ray to produce a specification of data fields required by 9 May
 * Ray to arrange meeting with Sue, Tom Rosenbloom and Raymond Thompson
   to discuss technical requirements
 * Sue to identify resource to carry out the work
 * Ray/Sue to identify suitable server and format to hold the data

Sue Milward, 28-Mar-2003