ND Community CallData Dashboards: Part 2

February 19, 2013

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Dashboards vs. Report Cards

What’s a dashboard? A navigation system that can graphically

represent current program performance—highlighting key areas of strength and weakness—as well as predict or forewarn of programs that are not on track to meet program performance goals at a glance

Supports decision-making

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Essential Steps

1. Define program priorities

2. Explore existing data

3. Map current and potential data sources

4. Select performance indicators

5. Set performance targets and threshold criteria

6. Conceptually group indicators

7. Design the dashboard interface

8. Develop the dashboard

9. Implement the dashboard

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Step 4: Select Performance Indicators

Things to Consider: Good dashboards need good data; good data is:

accessible clean timely comprehensible actionable

Types of indicators (e.g., Inputs, outputs, leading, lagging, student level, teacher level, classroom level, school/facility level, district level)

The inclusion of leading indicators that correlate with lagging indicators

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Leading and Lagging Indicators

Leading Indicators are outputs and short-term outcomes: Demonstrate signs of growth or

change in a given direction suggesting early wins and areas of improvement

Provide an early read on progress towards long-term outcomes

Measure conditions that are prerequisite to the desired outcomes (i.e., predict lagging indicators)

Lagging Indicators are long-term or desired outcomes: Measure the success and

consequences of activities that have already occurred

Measure achievement of the desired outcomes

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Leading and Lagging Indicators

On the next slide, identify the leading indicators and their corresponding lagging

indicators?

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Leading and Lagging Indicator

Teacher turnover rate Number of youth

who earn a CTE certificate

Course completion rate

Number of youth who begin a technical trade while in aftercare

Number of disciplinary incidents

Hours of professional development

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Step 4: Select Performance Indicators

What kind of indicator are each of the following and why? Any caveats?

Graduation rate Enrollment rate GED enrollment rate Number of CTE certificates

awarded Number of CTE certificates

earned Recidivism rate

Types of CTE courses offered Number of CTE courses

offered Per pupil spending Number of youth served Percentage of HQT by FTE Bed count High school transcript Average SAT/ACT score Course completion rate

9Step 5: Set Performance Targets and Threshold Criteria

Things to Consider: In terms of your priorities, where do you want your

subgrantees and facilities to be in one year? Two years? Three years?

What performance benchmarks might you set to measure their progress along the way?

How will you know when to target a subgrantee or facility for technical assistance? At what point might you sound the alarm?

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Step 6: Conceptually Group Indicators

Things to Consider: How might you categorize your selected indicators in a way

that makes it easier for you to identify subgrantees/facilities that are not meeting your performance targets? Demographics?

Outcomes (academic vs. transition vs. behavioral)?

Facility features and characteristics?

Staffing?

Priorities?

Common administrative challenges?

Common program implementation problems?

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Step 6: Conceptually Group Indicators

How might you group the following indicators?

Graduation rate Enrollment rate GED enrollment rate Number of CTE

certificates awarded Number of CTE

certificates earned Recidivism rate Course completion rate Average SAT/ACT score

Types of CTE courses offered

Number of CTE courses offered

Per pupil spending Number of youth served Percentage of HQT by FTE Bed count High school transcript

12Step 7: Design the Dashboard Interface

Things to Consider: The KISS (keep it simple sally) principle applies

Display high-level information that the user can understand

No extraneous or irrelevant details

No meaningless color coding, variety, or decorative elements

Data without a context is trivia: What data are essential to tell the story visually (i.e., without narration or analysis)?

13Step 7: Design the Dashboard Interface

Things to Consider: Choose the right display

Tabular (spreadsheet), graphical, or some combination?

Bar chart, pie chart, gauge, map or time series graph?

Highlight important data at a glance

Emphasize important data by its position on the dashboard

Emphasize important data by visual attributes like color intensity, size, line width

All dashboard data should be visible on a single screen without scrolling

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Dashboard Interfaces

For Discussion: What do like and not like about these dashboard interfaces?

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Next Steps

Homework: One-on-one follow-up call to discuss homework, finalize

indicators, threshold criteria, and conceptually groupings

Collect and submit sample data (scrubbed of any personally identifiable information) associated with these indicators

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Next Steps

For Discussion: What resources do you have available to support the

development and implementation of a dashboard?

Human?

Financial?

Technical/technological?

For our next call, would a hands-on tutorial on Excel and/or another decision support tool like Tableau be helpful?