A Method for Data Warehouse Design - Data Warehouse Systems: Design and Implementation - page 414

to the two main areas of activities of universities, namely, research and
education. However, a closer analysis shows that 60% of the criteria are
related to research activities (peer review and citation/faculty scores)
and 40% to the university's commitment to teaching. Therefore, we
suppose that the decision-making users chose initially to analyze the
situation related to research activities. To be able to conduct the
analysis process, it was decided to implement a data warehouse system.
Universities are usually divided into faculties representing gen-
eral fields of knowledge (e.g., medicine, engineering, sciences, and
so on). These faculties comprise several departments dedicated to
more specialized domains; for example, the faculty of engineering may
include departments of civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and
computer engineering, among others. University staff (e.g., professors,
researchers, teaching assistants, administrative staff, and so on) are
administratively attached to departments. In addition, autonomous
structures called research centers support multidisciplinary research
activities. University staff from various faculties or departments may
belong to these research centers. Research projects are conducted by
one or several research bodies, which may be either departments or
research centers. The research department is the administrative body
that coordinates all research activities at the university. It serves as a
bridge between high-level executives (e.g., the Rector and the research
council of the university) and researchers, as well as between researchers
and external organizations, whether industrial or governmental. For
example, the research department is responsible for the evaluation of
research activities, for the development of strategic research plans, for
promoting research activities and services, for managing intellectual
property rights and patents, and for technology transfer and creation
of spin-offs, among other things. In particular, the establishment of
strategic research areas is based on the university's core strengths and
ambitions, taking into account long-term potential and relevance. These
areas are the focus of institutional initiatives and investments. On the
basis of the institutional research strategy, faculties, departments, and
research centers establish their own research priorities.
Suppose the university has one general goal :toimproveitsranking
considering the strategic research areas established at the university.
This goal is decomposed into two subgoals related to improving the
scores in two evaluation criteria of The Times ranking: (a) the peer
review and (b) the citation per faculty criteria. The peer review
criterion (40% of the ranking score) is based on interviewing selected
academics from various countries to name the top institutions in the
areas and subjects about which they feel able to make an informed
judgment. The citation per faculty criterion (20% of the ranking score)
refers to the numbers of citations of academic papers generated by staff
members.