• General Questions
• Regarding Reporting
• Working with Data
  

What are the steps to get up and running?

There are eight simple steps to setting-up Activity Insight:

1. Send a copy of any reports you would like to run on the academic accomplishments, professional development, and service activities of your students.

2. We use the reports you sent to add screens and fields to a base set of data that we know you will likely need to collect. Elements in the base set of data include such items as, for presentations, the title of the presentation, where it was presented, who presented, and the date it was presented.

3. You beta test Activity Insight with as many people as you like, entering data into the system and seeing how things come out on reports. Changes are made to the system and you can again test the system until you deem that it is ready to be used.

4. Load data into Activity Insight from other databases, or connect other databases to Activity Insight.

5. If you would like to use it, put remote file storage in place to house files that you want to store within Activity Insight. Files might include papers submitted for courses, the full-text of presentations that your students give, presentation files of talks given by your students, or videos of productions your students create.

6. If you wish to use it, put single sign-on in place to make it more convenient to access Activity Insight. This makes it so your students no longer need a separate username and password to get into Activity Insight. Making it easy to get into Activity Insight will encourage more frequent use of the system.

7. If you wish to have them do so, individuals can begin entering data on your students' behalf.

8. Your students begin entering their data. An email can be sent by Activity Insight to let them know how to access the system.

Why should we not build a system such as Activity Insight in-house?

There are several good reasons to use Activity Insight instead of building your own system. Three of them are:

• Activity Insight is ready to use immediately and is rich with features. You benefit from Digital Measures' experience working with hundreds of other campuses. Instead of spending your resources building a system from scratch, you can use them to customize Activity Insight to be exactly as you want it. You are able to focus on the implementation, use of the system, and extraction of the data from the system rather than the construction of it.
• Most campus IT organizations do not seem to be in a position to build software solutions in-house. Creating software solutions entails significant time, expense and resources dedicated to their design, construction and maintenance. It seems to be a far better use of resources to focus a campus' IT organization on supporting and extending functionality in solutions such as Activity Insight.
• Activity Insight eliminates any downside of working with a vendor for this type of solution instead of building it in-house. The common "downsides" of working with a vendor for this type of solution are:
  
  ·The data from the vendor's system is in a proprietary file format that can only be used with the vendor's software, locking you into use of the vendor's software
  ·The data in the vendor's system cannot be used in real-time by other software that your campus uses, isolating your data and creating a "data island" where the data is locked away.
  ·If the vendor stops providing the service, your data will be lost
  
  Activity Insight effectively combats these concerns. All of Digital Measures' clients can obtain full downloads of all their data in comma-delimited or XML files at all times, ensuring clients always have access to all data and that the data can be used in other systems. Furthermore, your other software systems can "talk" to Activity Insight because of Digital Measures' use of web services.

What resources do we need to implement Activity Insight?

We recommend that a campus administrator oversee the implementation of Activity Insight campus-wide. This will not need to be the person’s sole responsibility, and the time commitment will drop significantly after implementation. Note that your campus administrator should have some technical background, as this is a software system.

We also recommend having each school or college appoint an administrator. This role is commonly filled by a student services coordinator, or someone similar. This is typically just one of the responsibilities of the person and is not a full or perhaps even part time role. If desired, your campus administrator can also fulfill this role for your school or college; this decision is up to you.

How do we get students to keep their data current?

There are several things you can do to increase user buy-in:

• Tie use of Activity Insight to to a degree requirement.
• Take advantage of Digital Measures’ data import capabilities as much as possible to alleviate any manual data entry that needs to be performed. You have databases with information such as the courses that your students take. This information can be brought into Activity Insight so that data do not need to be re-keyed.
• Clearly communicate this as well as any deadlines by which the information must be entered. Be sure to convey the importance of having timely, accurate data.
• Make training available to those who will be using Activity Insight. Support is also available through Digital Measures at any time. Digital Measures is frequently told that Activity Insight is very easy to use. Even so, people appreciate knowing that help is available if needed.

Is the initial setup period the only opportunity we have to customize Activity Insight?

No. You may revise the data you store within Activity Insight and the reports that you can build with it at any time.

How secure is Activity Insight?

Digital Measures has taken many steps to create a safe environment for your information while still making it easy for you to securely access it. All data are collected over a 128-bit SSL-encrypted connection, the industry-standard method of transferring sensitive information. All of Digital Measures' servers are managed by IBM and are running in an IBM-owned datacenter. All data is securely backed up every night to five geographically-dispersed locations owned by IBM and Iron Mountain. In addition, Digital Measures is registered with and certified by the United States Department of Commerce as compliant with the Safe Harbor Principles in effect between the European Union and the U.S.

Who owns my data and what can Digital Measures do with it?

All data provided by and collected for your campus by Digital Measures are solely owned by your campus. As per the terms in Digital Measures' standard service agreement, your data cannot be disclosed, reused, sold, or disseminated in any way by Digital Measures. Furthermore, per our standard service agreement, we legally agree to take steps to protect your confidential data.

Is your faculty activity reporting software American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant?

Yes.

We have custom reports that need to be pulled from the system. Can this be done?

Yes. Here are the ways this can be done:

• Send Digital Measures a detailed sample report as a Microsoft™ Word or Excel file, and we’ll build the report into the system for you. Custom reports contain the same exact text, formatting and layout as the reports you send.
• Use Activity Insight's Ad Hoc Reporting tool. This tool makes it easy to get data out of the system on a one-off basis.

Who can see data in Activity Insight and reports generated from it?

Only the people you specify can access your data. Our clients each set their own user permissions for the students, faculty, staff and administrators on their campus. Security can be assigned in nearly any way you desire. The typical security configuration most campuses use is similar to this:

• Students are only able to run reports on their own data
• Several designated individuals are able to run reports for the students in each department. You may also desire that these same people, or alternate people, be able to modify data in the system for this department
• Several designated individuals are able to run reports for the students in each college or school. You may also desire that these same people, or alternate people, be able to modify data in the system for this college or school
• Several designated individuals are able to run reports for all students on campus. You may also desire that these same people, or alternate people, be able to modify data in the system for all students on campus

Can we prepare different custom reports per academic unit?

Yes. Custom reports can be built into the system for each of your academic units.

Can we submit new reports to be built into the system even after the set-up period?

Yes. You may add, revise and remove reports at any time.

How do we bring data into Activity Insight from other systems?

Simply submit an import file in comma-delimited (.csv) format or a file that meets these two conditions:

• Every column in the file needs to ”map” to exactly one field in the system
• Every row in the file needs to have a unique identifier that matches an account in the system (new accounts can always be created)

This will enable you to use data from your campus ERP system such as PeopleSoft, Banner, SAP or Datatel.

How do we access data in Activity Insight with other systems?

Digital Measures supports an open standard referred to as ”web services.” The purpose of web services is to allow systems to “talk” that were otherwise not designed to do so. For example, this allows you to connect your student information system to Activity Insight to maintain current course information within Activity Insight. If you add a course into your student information system, it immediately shows up for the students enrolled in the course. If a student adds an item to Activity Insight such as a scholarship, the item immediately shows up on the person's profile on your website in real-time.

How can we get data out of Activity Insight?

Digital Measures makes it easy for you to build complex, custom reports for your students, departments, campus, and other stakeholders. Because Digital Measures digitizes the actual reports you need to prepare and uses the same specific data elements, calculations and formatting of the reports that you provide to us, building these reports is no longer a chore. When you click to run a report with Activity Insight, the report is then built in real-time using all data entered as of that instant.

Activity Insight's ad hoc reporting tool allows you to easily select the exact data elements you would like from those collected in the system. You can select the date range and whether you want to include data from all of your students or only data from particular colleges, schools, departments or units.

Even though Digital Measures partners with IBM and Iron Mountain to make five back ups of all client data every night, we still think it is a good idea for each of our clients to periodically download and store a full copy of their data. Activity Insight makes it easy to automatically download a full copy of all your data on a periodic basis. The data back ups are in comma-separated value (.csv) file format which you can then save to other databases and software applications.

Digital Measures supports an open standard referred to as ”web services.” The purpose of web services is to allow systems to “talk” that were otherwise not designed to do so.

Can we load data into Activity Insight even after the initial setup period?

Yes. You may load data as often and whenever you would like.

How long does the data we put in Activity Insight remain in the system?

All information entered into Activity Insight is always available. Even though your students change over time, keeping information for those individuals who are no longer with your campus is still important for preparing accurate historical reports on your students' achievements.