A Framework of Thailand Higher Education
Dashboard System
Nuansri Denwattana
Software engineering program,
Faculty of Informatics, Burapha University,
Chonburi, THAILAND.
E-mail: nuansri@buu.ac.th
Abstract—Prominent organizations, currently, have analytical
data-driven tool to support their decision making. A chart-like
dashboard is the most appropriate tool to make integrated
decisions encompassing multiple functions based on relevance
information systems. Such tools, however, are commonly used in
commercial firms rather than in the public organizations,
especially in the education sections. It is crucial that several
missions for the higher education in Thailand, such as graduate
performance, research study, academic services to the society,
and art & culture preservation, need a decision supporting tool to
accomplish such goals. In this paper, we propose the dashboard
framework for Higher Education, called TheDB (Thailand higher
education DashBoard). It is generally very challenging for the
higher education to have their own dashboards for different
levels in the organization. We have implemented TheDB
framework in nursing colleges of Public Health Ministry. In
addition, they explicit their work operation via the dashboard for
education quality assurance audited and approved by both
related authorize organizations, including Thailand Nursing
Council.
Keywords—Dashboard; analytic data-driven tool; dicision
support: framework; higher education, information systems
I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
In the last decade, many organizations use information
systems as a common tool to perform their business.
Particularly, managerial decisions usually use a selection of
tabular/chart forms or reports produced by such information
systems. It is noticed that decision and business information
flow at different hierarchical levels of the organization
structure be considered as a whole to conduct business in
order to achieve effective integration of corporate decisions.
Several organizations, especially in commercial firms, have
then adopted data-driven decision making processes and tools
to enhance competitive advantage. Most of them perform data
analysis focused on quantitative historical data using chart-like
dashboards. These dashboards provide quantitative multi-
dimensional real-time visualized forms. In Thailand, many
private firms use a dashboard as a decision support tool. For a
public section, there is a HDC dashboard [1] demonstrated in
the Figure I. The HDC Dashboard, Health Data Center, is
developed by information technology and communications
center, Thailand Ministry of Public Health. This dashboard
contains different Key Performance Indicators (KPI) in terms
978-1-5090-4420-7/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Apisit Saengsai
Information Systems Engineering Research Laboratory,
Faculty of Informatics, Burapha University,
Chonburi, THAILAND.
E-mail: saengsai.apisit@gmail.com
of population health at various hierarchical levels of the
Ministry e.g., province, area (group of provinces), department,
and overall country.
Fig. 1. The HDC Dashboard
Similarly for education institutes, especially in higher
education, there should be a tool to analyze quantitative data
because there have a variety of operational data via existing
information systems. Such tool should be a higher education
dashboard, both general and specific purposes. Academic and
support staff, especially excutive, should have their own
dashboards that would allow them to provide tangible, useful
information, and identity some boarder trends in the
University. The dashboard gives high-level charts describing
various relevance data statistics, such as the number of new
students each year, the loss of students each year and what the
main reasons are, the number of research papers and research
projects in a period of time and who contributed them.
This paper introduces an analytical data-driven
dashboard framework of higher education in Thailand, called
TheDB (Thailand higher education DashBoard). Principally,
higher education in Thailand has five main missions, i.e. 1)
Graduate production 2) Research study 3) Academic services
to the society 4) Art & culture preservation, and 5)
Administration undertaking. The TheDB does not only
support such Key Performance Indicators (KPI), it also
supports an extraordinary mission that is an education quality
assurance management. Our study suggests that by using
existing information systems together with external
information systems, how the TheDB can encompass to
archive missions. The proposed idea is the framework of
traditional information systems integration and organization.
The framework also applies the concept of dashboard on top
of such systems in multidimensional views.
The organization of this paper is as follows. Section 1
contains background of a problems and an introduction part.
In the Section 2, we will briefly explain a concept of generally
dashboard, university dashboard related paper, decision
support systems, and Thailand education quality assurance
system. The proposed framework and its architecture are
discussed in the Section 3. The results in terms of TheDB
implementation into a software and software deployment in
nursing colleges demonstrated as a success case of this
framework are explained in the Section 4. We end up with the
conclusion and future works of the framework applications in
the Section 5.
II. RELATED WORKS
This section will explain the concept of the generally
dashboard, university dashboard, decision support system and
Thailand education quality assurance system.
A. Dashboard systems
Generally, dashboards are used to gather summary data
and provide necessary and up-to-date information to assist
critical decisions for business management as Stephen Few
and Methawee [3] proposed in a definition of dashboard as
follows. A dashboard is a visual presentation of the most
important performance indicators to achieve one or more
objectives. It shows the information fit on a single screen in
real-time interface, such as filtering and drill-down graph.
Stephen Few [2] proposed that dashboard will represent an
image and create an efficient organization. The historical data
should present values which are important and impact the
organization and ease understanding. In addition, Methawee’s
definition of dashboard [3] is a graphical representation of
numeric data. In terms of business decision making, a number
of representations will assist the business owner to make
decisions more accurately. Dashboard is an important tool for
the entrepreneur and should be adopted in their businesses to
improve strength and weakness analysis.
Regarding to the advantages, dashboard concepts were
adopted to assisted in many business type for example,
Clinical dashboards are used to gather and summarize data and
will provide the necessary information to assist critical
decision making for healthcare management [4]. Some recent
clinical dashboards have also provided visual and interactive
data visualization features, data analytics and inference
capabilities which extend the capabilities of visualizing key
performance indicators (KPI) and summarized data. The
survey found that the Clinical dashboards assisted physicians
in making inferences and/or discovering patterns in large
EHRs datasets. Beside, dashboard was adopted in Business
Information System: BIS [5], it is an interactive computer-
based structure designed to help decision makers who will
utilize it for communication technologies, data, documents,
knowledge, and analytical models to identify and solve
problems. This study found that dashboards using
performance management as collaborative tools for
communication and consistency purposes aided the
communication of the values and objectives of the company.
B. University Dashboard and Decision Support Systems
Meyliana et al., 2014 [6] proposed University Dashboard,
an Implementation of Executive Dashboard to University. The
building of executive dashboard application and designing of
data warehouse are derived from the existing information
system architecture. All relevance data are collected in a data
warehouse and the executive dashboard then extracts such
data to present chart-like forms. This dashboard, however,
seems to serve only for the highest level of management in the
University.
The computerized decision support is an application that
gathers and presents organizational data in the support of
enhanced decision making. Jin Wang [7] proposed the
development of a decision support system for flood
forecasting and warning – A Case Study on The Maribyrnong
River: DSSFCMR. The system was developed to assist the
decision making for flood control and not real-time flood
forecasting and warning. The DSSFCMR [7] consists of five
subsystems, the Database Management System (DBMS),
Modelbase, Spatial and Graphic Data Display and Analysis
(SGDDA), Decision Support, and Interface. The integration
technology to interact DSSFCMR with other models or
software e.g. MapObjects , URBS model and GIS assist
complex decision making and can be done automatically,
effectively and quickly.
Agostino G. Bruzzone and Pietro Giribone [8] proposed a
wired decision support system for logistics that is related to
harbour and maritime applications. An innovative approach
based on the extensive use of simulation and virtual reality in
a web environment. The complexity of the logistics require
advanced graphics and the use of AI techniques to support
planners and decision makers.
C. Quality Assurance Management
The National Education Act of 1999 (The Office for
National Education Standards and Quality Assessment, 2004)
has set forth the following aims: (1) to produce graduates, (2)
to conduct research studies, (3) to provide academic services
to society, (4) to preserve arts and culture and (5) to provide
an administration undertaking [9]. The organization requires
all educational institutions to provide educational quality
assurance, in which internal and external quality assurance
systems are included. A quality assurance system is needed for
higher education institutions to succeed in these missions and
to meet both short-term and long-term objectives to develop
the Nation.
Additionally, the Thailand nursing institution and public
health organization in Thailand are required to produce quality
nursing graduates to respond to the societies demands from the
Thailand nursing council [10]. The council will monitor and
assess the performance of colleges, universities and
institutions in the system and provide a mechanism that the
Institution will establish by comparative analysis of
performance based on indicators for all aspects that meet the
criteria and the standards.
III. THAILAND HIGHER EDUCATION DASHBOARD FRAMEWORK In the high-level design of the TheDB framework, we
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN specify the information systems required by Thailand higher
education missions as illustrated in the Figure 3. The lowest
In this section, we will first describe the conceptual design
level is the infrastructure such that it can be internet provider,
of the TheDB framework. A transformation of the conceptual
computer servers, computer network and operating systems,
design into a high-level design is then presented. As our team
etc.
development are more than 10 developers, the component
design of the framework are essential. At the end of this In the second level, we classify the information systems
section, the application services architecture are exposed. into three parts: 1) the foundation application software, 2) the
application software tools, and 3) the transaction processing
A. TheDB Framework Designs systems performing five main missions.
We present two levels of proposed framework designs,
conceptual and high-level design. The conceptual design of
our proposed framework is viewed as a human house shown in
the Figure 2. From the external point of view, there are three
different parts in a house-like framework, i.e. ground-base,
body of the house, and the roof or rooftop.
The first level is a ground-base of the framework
containing related infrastructure supporting upper level
requirements. Such infrastructure can be both hardware and
software, i.e. computer servers, inter/intranet, operating
systems, database management system, and other related
software. The second level covers all transactional/functional
processing systems to accomplish missions of higher
education. All data and information are collected and
processed in this level via the existing information systems.
The most importance point of this framework is in the
highest level. It represents the variety kinds of output for
specific and general purposes. The output can be summarized
data, charts, or tabular reports. Whatever the form of the Fig. 3. The High-level Design of TheDB Framework
output is, the information displayed in such output is extracted
from the information systems in the second level of the The application software in the foundation layer will
framework. A main objective of the TheDB framework is to provide essential data to other applications. One main
represent corresponding data represented personal and information system in this layer is a Human Resource
organization KPIs in appropriate output formats. In addition, Management System (HR). As most applications require
all data displayed in such output should be active, up-to-date, general person-related data, e.g. name, surname, work
real time, changing smoothly under mouse click (drill-down position, and affiliation, the HR system will provide required
style). The analytical data-driven dashboard is then applied to data to such applications. Another application in this layer is
fulfill the concept. Planning Management Systems (PMS), including strategy plan
In addition, whenever the organization has the functional and action plan. It is noticed that most activities in the
information systems, the output is not only in the dashboard University, especially with budget support performing in a
style, it is also in other formats. Here we also present another period of time, must correspond to the organization’s strategy
output representation, i.e. personal profile picking up and action plans in order to accomplish the goals and vision.
relevance data from those information systems. It is as an The application systems based on core missions, therefore,
active personal home page replacing the traditional style of need to connect relevance data from the PMS.
static html web page. The second part of the information systems works as a
tool to facilitate other applications. In the proposed
framework, the software in this layer are the User
Management System (UMS) and Data Service Tools (DST). A
main objective of the UMS is to organize the permission for
application users whereas the DST is a tool to support data
services, both data import from the external system(s) to the
particular internal system(s) or data export from internal
system(s) to outside environment.

The third part of the information systems is the

functional applications software based on main missions of the
higher education. We divide the applications into five groups.
Fig. 2. The Conceptual Design of TheDB Framework
 Fig. 4. The TheDB Component Design
The first category is information systems related to graduate
production ranging from new students admission system,
Thailand Qualification Framework (TQF) management
system, student enrollment and processing system, learning &
teaching assessment management system, student affairs
management system, and alumni information management
system, including (if any graduate students) the graduate
students monitoring & tracking system. The second category
is the academic research management system. Both
applications software for academic services to the society and
arts & culture preservation are in the third and fourth
categories respectively. The largest category is information
systems supported all administration tasks both required and
optional systems. Examples of required applications are
human resource development management system, budget
allocation & monitoring system, payroll system, accounting
system, procurement system. E-document system and E-
meeting system are the optional applications.
The roof of the framework is a variety of output forms.
This level is the organization of the information representation
in different formats. Managerial outputs at different work
positions or hierarchical levels of the organization are needed
to consider and analyze into and appropriate format. The
TheDB framework proposes two kinds of outputs that are
corporate dashboard and personal profile. The dashboard
system covered for executive, personal, and public
dashboards. The profile system is designed for academic and
support staff.
B. Components design of Thailand Higher Education
Dashboard Framework
There are two types of components in our proposed
framework: dashboard components and application
components. The dashboard components consist of five core
modules that are graduate production, academic research
study, academic services to the society, arts & culture
preservation, and administration performance. Dashboard
components only require interfaces whereas application
components both provide and require interfaces. The TheDB
framework component design is presented in the Figure 4. A
provided interface is modeled using the lollipop notation and a
required interface is modeled using the socket notation.
Fig. 5. Student Service Interface
As the paper space is limited, we illustrate the service
interface of student registration system as shown in the Figure
5. The application provides interface, called Student Services,
containing StudentList and StudentDetail. The StudentList
consists of summery student data, such as a number of
students in each year group by student status, gender, range of
grade point average, etc. The dashboard system also allows
users to drill down data via the card (summery data). In this
case the StudentDetail will be sent to the service consumer.
Detailed data will be extracted, e.g. studentID, studentName,
grade point average, gender, student status, etc. In order to
avoid huge of data extraction, the system allows users to
specify relevance criteria, e.g. education year and semester.
C. TheDB application services Architectural design
An architectural design for application services of
TheDB framework are presented in the Figure 6. Serviced
Applications are information systems related to higher
education missions. Each application has its own database,
along with its backup, to stored operational data. Considering
the system performance-based point of view, all external or
attached data, such as picture files, pdf files, etc., are stored in
the data storages. Furthermore, we also design for API to display, including charts, tables, and statistical summarized
service both provided and required interfaces. data, of all key missions. We are currently deploying the
system in the first phase.
The dashboard divides into five main menus,
administration undertaken, graduate performance, research
study, academic services to the society, and art & culture
preservation. As we have limited time to accomplish the first
phase, all data sending from the local servers are collected in
the spreadsheet format and transformed into the centralized
servers. Examples of the dashboard’s screenshots are shown in
the Figure 8 – Figure 10.
An academic staff profile system is illustrated in the
Figure 11. The system containing six categories of personal
data, ranging from general personal information, education
background, research publications, and activities of academic
services to the society and art & culture reservation. All such
Fig. 6. TheDB Application Services Architecture information is extracted from the related application databases
sending via the web services.
IV. THEDB IMPLEMENTATION : A CASE STUDY
The TheDB framework has been implemented and
deployed as a case study in the nursing college of Public
Health Ministry. It was developed and utilized open source
software such as PHP CodeIgniter framework. It is also
utilized MySQL 5.5 as a database management system and
adopted CentOS 6.7 as an operating system platform.
Figure 7 is an architectural design of the TheDB
implementation. Related Information systems are installed in
two sites, i.e., some applications are installed in the local
servers of each college and others are put in the central servers
located at Communications Authority of Thailand together
with the dashboard system. As such nursing colleges have
their own applications such as student enrollments Fig. 8. Dashboard Menus and PMS Dashboard.
management system and learning & teaching assessments
system, including application’s databases stored in the local
servers, our proposed dashboard is then extracted related
information via data services. Other applications and
databases, such as HR, PMS, Research management system,
UMS, etc., are stored in the centralized servers. Such systems
then pass out required data to the dashboard system.

Fig. 9. TQF Dashboard.

Fig. 7. An Architectural TheDB Implementation

The implementation plan classifies into two phases. The

first phase is an initialization under an urgent mission, i.e.
some nursing colleges will be audited and approved by
Thailand nursing council. The executive dashboard and
academic staff profile system are then firstly implemented.
The executive dashboard contains of several kinds of data
Fig. 10. New students admission.

Fig. 11. The Academic staff profile system
In the second phases, we plans to implement the personal
dashboard, organization dashboard, and support staff profile
system. The dashboard system will allow an administrator to
customize permission to individual or group of users to
visualize their own data via the personal dashboard. In
addition, the college can use an organization dashboard as a
tool to build corporate reputation by display statistical related
data to the public. As the profile system is one of the output
form in TheDB framework and we have already implemented
academic staff profile system, by using the same concept, a
support staff profile system will be then developed. We are
also developing the data service across different platforms and
distributed servers.
As the TheDB framework has recently been implemented
in the nursing college, it has not been evaluated yet. In short
coming future, however, we will perform the evaluation in two
different ways. The first assessment is by users who use the
system via questionnaires. Another evaluation is rating
assessment of educational quality assurance from the qualified
auditors (indicator name: Information systems usage in the
college/institute).
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS
Thailand higher education dashboard framework, TheDB,
are proposed to support the decision making at different
hierarchical levels of the organization. The framework
contains three levels represented as a human house model:
ground-base, body, and the roof. We have developed and
implemented the dashboard system for nursing colleges of
Public Health Ministry. Presently, it is a first phase of the
implementation. The executive dashboard and academic staff
profile systems are deployed. The personal and organization
dashboard, also support staff profile systems are currently
developing. These nursing colleges do not only use our
proposed system for a routine work, but also apply the system
for an education quality assurance audit and approve.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Finally we wish to thank all staff in Information Systems
Engineering Research Laboratory, Faculty of Informatics ,
together with Eastern Software Park, Burapha University to
perform such a great work.
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