22Jan 2015 by Mike Sharkey No Comments

Yes, I actually read the Tableau Online EULA

Analytics
I signed up for Tableau Online this week.  To understand why this was sort of a big deal for me, let me give you some background.  First, I love Tableau.  I've been a heavy user for over 5 years now.  If you do any sort of data wrangling, I urge you to give it a try.  While Excel is and has always been a great tool for exploring data, Tableau is in a whole different league.  It allows you to view/experience/feel/flip/play with data in so many ways with so little effort.  That's a huge advantage when you are trying to understand the story behind a data set.  The biggest tradeoff I've always claimed about Tableau is that it's a great analyst tool (for exploring data), but it's a poor enterprise…
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20Jan 2015 by Mike Sharkey No Comments

I, for one, welcome our new analytics overlords

Analytics
Before I get into this post, I want to make sure that everyone gets the tongue-in-cheek nature of the post title and image, so please check the meme reference if you're not sure.  Now that I've got my implicit disclaimer out of the way, let's start by talking about sports analytics.  I'm a bit of a fanboy when it comes to sports analytics.  It's a mashup of two of my true passions.  I'm the data nerd who plays fantasy baseball and fantasy football every year.  I haven't been to the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, but I'm sure I'll make it some day.  I'm a runner and I chart out my race times year over year.  I have a wi-fi enabled scale that tracks my weight.  If the Arizona Diamondbacks' Director of Analytics…
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10Feb 2014 by Mike Sharkey No Comments

Your Secret Sauce is not so Secret

Analytics, Models
  In the predictive analytics space, there is always talk about secret sauce.  The roots of it make sense to me.  Think about the financial industry...if you built a model that could predict future trends in stock prices, you'd probably want to keep that a secret.  In the education space, though, the logic starts to break down. First of all, education is a highly collaborative space and it represents a social good.  Keeping a valuable secret that might help students succeed is antithetical to the nature of education.  Second, education is a complex ecosystem of people, processes, policies, content, etc.  I would have strong doubts about anyone who claimed to have a formula that worked for a wide variety of institutions.  Third, I think it creates an element of distrust.…
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05Sep 2013 by Mike Sharkey No Comments

Obligatory Moneyball Reference

Analytics, Blue Canary
Yes, many folks in the analytics space flock to “The Moneyball Reference”.  It’s a great example of how data analysis seeped into the mainstream using a powerful vehicle known as Brad Pitt.  The usual reference points out that Billy Beane’s analytical approach to players and statistics was counter to the decades-long logic of the established way of thinking.  Furthermore, that logic led to improved success while spending fewer dollars.  Call it the anti-Yankee approach.  As an analyst and a lifelong baseball fan, though, there’s a more nuanced takeaway from Moneyball that I like to reference.  That point is that the Moneyball approach is predicated on knowing the rules of the game.  In baseball, the team with the most runs wins.  Period.  Here’s a (crude) video clip of the scene from…
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13May 2013 by Mike Sharkey No Comments

Three Dimensions of Student Success

Analytics, Engagement, Learning, Progression
I like frameworks.  I like them because they help align conversations.  When folks talk about a topic as amorphous as analytics, a framework helps to get everyone on the same page and have them using the same language. When we talk about analytics in Higher Education, the conversation usually goes something like this: "So, you want to use analytics at your institution.  What do you hope to achieve?" "Well, I want to use data and analytics to help my students succeed." "Got it. What do you mean by 'student success'?" "Well...ummm...I mean that they should...ummm.  I'm not sure." So, here's the framework I use to address this conversation.  It breaks student success down into three orthogonal dimensions: Progression: This is milestone-based success.  Will the student pass this class?  Will the…
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