Interfacing multiple levels of decision support with MapServer to evaluate education quality in Peru

Open Source GIS Conference 2004 & Second Annual MapServer User Meeting

G. Brent Hall and Michael LeahyUniversity of Waterloo

June 9-11, 2004

Outline

Objectives of project Hierarchical nature of Peruvian education system Design of interface and tools for evaluation of

education quality from multiple perspectives and multiple levels

Role of Open Source Software (OSS) and MapServer in design

Sample decision problems and tools Need for additional spatial analysis techniques in

addition to map-based selection and browsing

Project Objectives

To utilize OSS tools fully without any commercial software other than the OS (as reviewed in Leahy/Hall presentation)

To facilitate flexible evaluation and decision analysis for knowledgeable and less knowledgeable users Knowledgeable users > Ministry planners at 3 levels of

system (national, regional, local) Less Knowledgeable users > School administrators,

teachers, parents To democratize information access and to return

information to collection points (schools)

Project Objectives

To interface map-based selections and list-based selections and to visualise analysis results on maps

To facilitate use of results for planning and system adjustment aimed at improving aspects and areas of education quality deficiency

Peruvian Education System

Ministry of Education

Educational Sub-Regions

Local Education Management Units (UGEL)

Educational DevelopmentAreas (EDA)

Areas of Execution (AE)

Total Non-FormalPrograms

Education Centres(Schools)

Private EducationCentres

Non-Formal PrivateEducation Programs

Non-Formal PublicEducation Programs

Drill down within levels

Drill across between schools within and across levels

Public EducationCentres

Regional EducationDirectorates (DRE)Regional EducationDirectorates (DRE)

National

Regional

Local

Local

Selection

Selection of areas and schools for quality analysis must be flexible and intuitive Should reflect the general organizational hierarchy

of the education system Must eventually allow user to select multiple

areas, single areas, all or only some schools Interface must facilitate users with a range of

computing skills and languages Work remains to be done with this in the prototype

cont….

Currently administrative areas of Ministry of Education are not in digital form (DRE, UGEL) Hence, geographically nested political areas are

used (Departments, Provinces, Districts) Selected entities do not have to be spatially contiguous

to allow user to select them in either map or list mode Currently analysis is restricted to all schools in

selected districts Addition of selection of specific schools to be

developed in the prototype

Database and decision levels

Table of all districtsin Peru

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Selected districts foreducation quality analysis

Selected districts and all constituent schools form current selection set – number of schools is equal to sum of all schools in selected districts

Available indicators at the school level – areaggregated as required depending on level of analysis

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In a typical case a user would select a specific district, a set of contiguous districts, or a set of non-contiguous districts. These selections are saved as a selection setalong with all schools in the relevant areas

Ideally the system should allow selection of one or moredistricts and then allow the user to refine the selection byselecting some or all schools that fall within this selectionset.

These schools can then define the aggregation of urbanblocks or rural population centres that fall within the school catchments to be selected for contextual analysis

cont….

Once a district selection set is defined by a user this currently includes all schools and all enclosed small area census units If the user chooses to work at the district level for

analysis – all census data and all schools data are aggregated to that level – i.e. results become generalized to that level of geography and are not very informative

If the user chooses to work at the school and at the city block or population centre level all data are analyzed at that level, retaining local variability

Database and decision levels

Table of all schoolsin selected districts –all are selected by default

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Available indicators education quality indicators – areaggregated as required depending on level of analysis

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Next step is for user toselect education andcontextual variables

Database and decision levels

Data matrix

Table of all schoolsin selected districts – atpresent all are selected by default

Contextual variables areaggregated either at districtlevel or disaggregated tocity block (urban) or population centres (rural)

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Available indicators at the school level – areaggregated as required depending on level of analysis

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Intuitive interface – operates in three languages – English, Spanish, Quechua

Selection methods

Selection by list or by map, or by a combination of the two

Selection by list

Drill down into the education hierarchy – can select non-adjacent areas

Selection by map

As noted, Ministry administrative unit boundaries are not digitized – political boundaries are used. Areas are spatially nested and analysis canbe undertaken for all schools within selected areas

Selection by map

This map of districtshas been zoomed tothe general level ofthe cono norte of Lima

Districts can beselected in a varietyof ways

Selection by map

Using the select byline tool all districtsin the cono norte have been selected for analysis

Demonstration

District and sub-district education quality analysis with EduCal

Other functions of the EduCal tool

Export results tables to .csv and .shp for further analysis in general and specialist software SPSS, Excel Geographically weighted regression, spatial autocorrelaton

analysis Create and print map composition of results Email maps as attachments (for transmission within

the education system administration) for reporting and planning purposes

Creation, retrieval and modification of user defined scenarios

Planned functions for the EduCal tool

Four areas of planned expansion Modify selection capabilities so user can select

specific schools (single school or groups) for analysis From selected schools define catchments based on

enrolment constrained allocation of city blocks or population centres

Use the census-based entities within these catchment areas for analysis of contextual effects on school selection set

Allows local effects to be analyzed more realistically and flexibly

cont….

Expand data administration functions to allow upload of data from schools to database Requires data cleansing and metadata before data are

added to the database – some automation is possible Needs review of site security and access so authorized

users can control access to their own data (private vs public views of components of the database)

Access should include ability to upload and ability to view via secure password – beyond level of password control that currently exists

Eventual control of site to be passed to counterpart agencies in Peru (Ministry and NGO partners)

cont….

Add dimension of time to create a data cube so quality performance can be analyzed temporally Allow users to perform spatial and temporal queries of

data across and through multiple slices of the data cube Education data are collected from all state schools every

year in Peru hence database design must be extensible Initiate basic data mining functions on-line to allow

planners to return simple queries and examine trends in education quality at the school level prior to and after intervention

Similar work underway in health care sector with JMap (Kheops Technologies) commercial java-based web map server

cont….

Expand spatial analysis functions and mapping output of the tool to enable on-line spatial data analysis (SOLAP) Use results of spatial analysis to inform decision making

process Need to control access to more sophisticated functions for

advanced users only

Access to development site: Access to the developershttp://gaia.uwaterloo.ca/educal gbhall@fes.uwaterloo.caAccess to public site:

mgleahy@fes.uwaterloo.cahttp://toa.uwaterloo.ca/educal jpalperi@fes.uwaterloo.ca