UNC Departmental Profiles Project: Designing an Online Database Retrieval and Reporting System for the UNC Department of Institutional Research and Assessment

by Barbe, Stephen R.

This paper describes the design, development, and testing of a web application for web reporting of institutional research data.

The project was initiated at the request of the management of the Department of Institutional Research and Assessment. IR&A is responsible for collecting, summarizing and statistically analyzing a vast amount of university data which is currently stored in a large SAS database and accessed through a SAS application. The management of IR&A felt that the current system had grown too unwieldy and sought an alternative solution for making this data accessible to their user population.

This paper describes the phases of the project, from the initial gathering of functional requirements and design of a project plan to the design and construction of a new relational database to store and the design and development of a dynamic Web-based front end for accessing and manipulating the data.