Meriel Oconor

  Granularity and Cardinality in Higher Ed Data  “Just give me a big table and I’ll figure it out in Excel” is a sentiment often expressed to the Data and Strategic Analytics team. If only it were that easy.  Sometimes it is. You have a… Read More

  If you’re new to SQL, one of the first concepts you’ll encounter is joining data.  At Vanderbilt we have thousands of tables of data stored separately. One table might hold core student information, another demographic attributes, another course data, and another faculty assignments. The question is how those pieces connect.  If you’re fortunate, a data model… Read More

Requesting data access matters more than it might seem. The degree of thoughtfulness and specificity of a request for a report determines how quickly, and how accurately, that access is granted. Thoughtful requests are usually processed in a day or two. Vague ones tend to stall,… Read More

If I imagine myself waking up to a notification showing statistics that I should have slept more, it summons feelings of hopelessness. Inevitably, I should have slept more but the way to enable that involves witchcraft on a toddler, and I don’t possess a wand. It’s tempting to track sleep… Read More