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Saul Sherry
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Saul Sherry, Editor, 5/22/2013   Comment now
The best big data insight comes when an organisation looks at itself from the inside out. Approaching the challenge to get your own network as transparent and clean-running as possible is the best grounding for real business intelligence insights.
Most recent post, Daniel Gutierrez, 5/23/2013 11:17:04 PM
@Saul, I think businesses are indeed embracing big data in a variety of ways, as...
James M. Connolly
21
James M. Connolly, US Correspondent, 5/17/2013   Comment now
College students get queasy when they think of their institution of higher learning as being a business with budgets and management mandates. After all, the classroom, the dorms, and the campus are at the root of the word collegial.
Most recent post, James M. Connolly, 5/23/2013 9:11:47 AM
@Saul. Yes, some schools -- or at least individuals within a faculty -- will look...
Saul Sherry
9
Saul Sherry, Editor, 5/13/2013   Comment now
OK, so it's Extract, Transform and Load - but we'll show you what it really means.
Saul Sherry
8
Saul Sherry, Editor, 5/9/2013   Comment now
Is "big data" too broad a term for what businesses are trying to achieve with it? It's possible, as the emphasis switches not just from end-user to end-user, but from vendor to vendor, too.
Ariella Brown
41
Ariella Brown, Technology Blogger, 4/12/2013   Comment now
By using data to track preparation for college at the high school level and the experience of students at the postsecondary level, College Summit focuses on achieving measurable improvement for low-income students, not only in terms of acceptance to college, but in terms of progress at that level.
Ariella Brown
15
Ariella Brown, Technology Blogger, 4/3/2013   Comment now
On April 18 and 19, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) will celebrate its launch at the Boston Public Library. In keeping with the ideals underlying the project, there is no charge to attend, though the registration forms indicate the event has filled up.
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The Organic Switch to Big Data for BI
Saul Sherry, Editor, 5/22/2013
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Bridging the Gap to the Goal With Educational Data
Ariella Brown, Technology Blogger, 4/12/2013
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Big Data Explained: What Is ETL?
OK, so it's Extract, Transform and Load - but we'll show you what it really means.
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Saul Sherry
Big Data Explained: What Is ETL?
Part of 9   |   See complete series
5|13|13   |   1:14   |   (9) comments

ETL is central to a lot of big data work, standing for Extract, Transform, and Load. But what does that mean? Let's explain it with an example:

Lauren is a data scientist working at a university, looking to bring together different datasets to make sure students are offered courses which best suit their profiles. To do this, she needs to pull data from lots of places into a centralized data warehouse.

First, she needs to extract data from the original sources, which can include existing university databases, as well as web crawling for social media information on students.

Next, Lauren has to transform this extracted data so that it fits in a way the centralized data warehouse can use it. For this, she can use a series of rules or functions to get the data into shape -- for instance, changing DOBs to reflect age, deriving aggregated values, deduplicating records, or joining data from multiple sources, depending on what the final data warehouse needs.

Finally, Lauren can load this data into the data warehouse, giving her a way to gain new insight on students by mining for patterns in this collected data.