Data TransformationDance scholar to research manager.

Caitlin E McDonald, PhDData, Research & Insights Manager, TES Globalhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlinmcdonald

TES Global at a glance

Supporting educators for over

100 years

World’s biggest network of educators at over

8 million

Home to gold standard in

global university rankings

600 staffin UK, US and Australia

Jobs

Supply teachers

Resources

News

Teacher Training

News

Jobs

Rankings data

A digital education company helping teachers, schools and universities

succeed

5 years ago

Came to TES almost 5 years ago after finishing my PhD.

Moved teams 3 times, became more technical with each move.

2 years ago

TES’s digital transition: new CTO, new approach, new product strategies.

1 year ago

Resources Marketplace: understand the data structure, strategy and performance, user behaviour, and the TES company culture inside out.

(...)

About me

It felt like…

Why are anthropologists good at data?

How do we know what is meaningful?

Once we know what is meaningful, how do we measure it?

Do we have the right data? If not, how do we get it?

Context.

New product, new stack, new data pipeline

Company

TES Global is the leading professional network for educators in the UK and around the world.

Over 8 million registered members in 279 countries and territories.

Context

● Moved from a free-only to a free + premium ecosystem

● ...While switching our stack from .Net to node.js.

● {Data}: changed from SQL Server to MongoDB/Redshift.

Product Goals

● Continue to delight teachers with free content for their classrooms.

● Encourage teachers to earn money for top-quality content they develop and share.

Insight vs ‘Data’Simplify, simplify.

When there is more data than ever available, we can lose focus on our simple goals:

● Continue to delight teachers with free content for their classrooms.

● Encourage teachers to earn money for top-quality content they develop and share.

Learning to apply the right numbers at the right time is the key.

Challenge: insight

Defining product strategy from behaviour

○ Was true shortly after premium marketplace launch

○ Changing behaviour: now Tue & Wed attract most buyers

○ Lower volume days (Fri & Sat) have higher sales vol per buyer

○ Teachers express a strong sense of community through using the site

Conclusion: focus on ● Collections & author shops● recommendations● internal search● ‘lean’ marketing

● Assumption: Sunday night = homework night (for teachers too)

● Forlani, Paolo, Ferando Bertelli and Giacomo Gastaldi. “Vniversale descrittione di tvtta la terra conoscivta fin qvi.” Library of Congress. Approx 1565. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3200.mf000070/

● Dlinear blog. “Map Tool: Terra Incognita”. June 2015. https://dlinear.net/2015/06/07/map-tool-terra-incognita/● http://gmworldmap.com/#2098315610:2148566950:32768

Thank you!

Caitlin E McDonald, PhDData, Research & Insights Manager, TES Globalhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlinmcdonald