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Five Questions with Markos Keir

Altis Consulting, Sydney, Australia

Connect with Markos

An interview with Markos Keir, Managing Consultant at Altis.

1. Tell us about what Altis does and the specific assistance it offers its customers.

Altis is the largest and most experienced specialist data analytics consulting firm in Australia and New Zealand, with over 150 permanent staff. Altis has extensive experience in the higher education sector, having worked with over 40 higher education customers and sponsoring 18 AAIR SIG Forums and AAIR Annual Forums since 2009. For 25 years, Altis has been combining industry expertise with technical capability to deliver tangible business outcomes while maintaining the Altis ethos of Connecting with Courage, Heart and Insight.

Some examples of the services we have delivered the 40+ different higher education customers we have worked with include:

  • data platform, data lake, data warehouse and business intelligence solutions across subject areas such as enrolment, load planning, student lifecycle, enquiries, applications and admissions, through to alumni and research, HR, IT, finance and facilities
  • information management strategy and roadmaps
  • data governance frameworks
  • health checks
  • toolset selections.
Image of a DA Model

2. Can you briefly summarise some of your collaborations with universities?

In the last 12 months Altis has collaborated with several Australian universities. Here are summaries of some of our recent projects:

  • Created a data strategy and detailed business case for the implementation of a significant data analytics platform.
  • Designed and implemented a best practice Power BI reporting environment, produced a suite of reports for the reconciliation of TCSI back to source, and developed several ETL processes.
  • Implemented best practice reporting recommendations, including a revamped Power BI reporting template, and guidance on transitioning to a new Power BI Portal. Dashboards delivered included a student dashboard for easy tracking of student pipeline from applications, offers, acceptances and enrolments, to EFTSL and headcount.
  • Implemented data analytics requirements, current state assessment and future state design of student support services, including delivery of quick win dashboards across special considerations and recognition of prior learning.
  • Delivered new data models and dashboards across finance, HR, and student assessments, and uplifted dashboard capability.

3. What do you anticipate the needs of your clients to be in the age of ‘disruption’ in tertiary education? E.g. What are your thoughts on data and analytics for the future?

There’s a lot of noise in the industry right now in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The recent public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT seems to have pushed it further into the mainstream and has many organisations considering the possibilities.

ChatGPT will provide many opportunities in the coming years, however, fundamentally you still need a solid core to build this on. Access to clean and reliable data always has and always will be the cornerstone of any analytics work. Strong data governance practices and traditional data warehousing techniques are still very much required. It’s only after this is bedded in that it can be augmented with AI and ML.

4.  What has Altis learned from its involvement with the higher education sector in Australia and New Zealand?

Access to timely and accurate data for informed decision making is critical for universities. It’s essential to help executives and administrators makes decisions, identify trends, and measure performance.

Universities have large government reporting requirements, and the effort to satisfy these can also be leveraged to provide greater insights across the university. The more mature the university, the more data sources are being ingested and modelled together to enrich data insights such as overall student lifecycle analysis.

Altis Consulting logo with line art that looks like a pink line smile with small blue dots at each corner.5. How can people connect with Altis?

If you would like to learn more about Altis and the tangible business outcomes that are possible for your university, then please contact our head office either by phone on +61 (2) 9211 1522, or by email at: connect@altis.com.au.

Visit us at https://www.altisconsulting.com/au/industries/higher-education/.

Chris Kearns, UK Regional Manager for Altis Consulting, demonstrates a university admissions Power BI report that showcases:

  • Data visualisation best practices
  • Drill-through
  • Power BI embedded in a client-facing website
  • Row-level security
  • Write back from the report to an underlying database via a Power app

Admissions is a critical part of the student journey, and there are many stakeholders across the university with a keen interest in tracking the cumulative applications throughout the admissions process. The Altis team has created an admissions report for a fictitious university to allow those various stakeholders to engage with the application numbers at the level of detail that suits them. Chris walks through the admissions report in the Power BI service to demonstrate the various ways in which the cumulative applications can be analysed.

The university admissions report can be used as a starting point to engage stakeholders at your institution and fast-track the development of an admissions reporting solution that is ‘right-sized’ for you.

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