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 Leahy University 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 Development Areas (EDA) Areas of Execution (AE) Total Non-Formal Programs Education Centres (Schools) Private Education Centres Non-Formal Private Education Programs Non-Formal Public Education Programs Drill down within levels Drill across between schools within and across levels Public Education Centres Regional Education Directorates (DRE) Regional Education Directorates (DRE) National Regional 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 districts in Peru 1 n Selected districts for education 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 – are aggregated as required depending on level of analysis 1n 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 set along with all schools in the relevant areas Ideally the system should allow selection of one or more districts and then allow the user to refine the selection by selecting some or all schools that fall within this selection set. These schools can then define the aggregation of urban blocks 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 schools in selected districts – all are selected by default 1 n Available indicators education quality indicators – are aggregated as required depending on level of analysis 1n Next step is for user to select education and contextual variables

Database and decision levels Data matrix Table of all schools in selected districts – at present all are selected by default Contextual variables are aggregated either at district level or disaggregated to city block (urban) or population centres (rural) 1 n Available indicators at the school level – are aggregated as required depending on level of analysis 18

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 can be undertaken for all schools within selected areas

Selection by map This map of districts has been zoomed to the general level of the cono norte of Lima Districts can be selected in a variety of ways

Selection by map Using the select by line tool all districts in 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 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 developers Access to public