Generative AI Meets Business Intelligence: A New Era in K-12 Analytics
In our last blog, we showcased how the convergence of Generative AI and Business Intelligence (BI) simplified analyzing unstructured data for promoting green energy. Now, let’s dive into another application of this powerful combination — K-12 education analytics.
Traditional BI tools provide straightforward insights from structured data, such as attendance, tardy, and exam scores. But education data is more than numbers. In K-12 schools, unstructured data from transcripts, report cards, and narrative feedback holds a wealth of untapped insights about student performance, strengths, and areas of improvement. This is where AI’s natural language capabilities truly shine, transforming unstructured text into actionable insights and simplifying complex queries.
Working with transcripts and other unstructured data can be time-consuming and often impossible to go through multiple documents to get the insights from them. For instance, I was curious about how many students scored above 75% in math, but the transcripts didn’t use percentages. Instead, they contained letter grades, and BI tools typically fall short when interpreting these nuances. When I posed my question to Qlik Answers, an AI-driven BI tool, the response was refreshing:
Q: “Can you give the number of students who scored more than 75% in math?”
It’s essential to know how to say ‘NO’ at the right time and in the right way, and Qlik Answers excels at this. When AI couldn’t provide an exact answer, it communicated this clearly, recognizing that my question needed rephrasing. It then offered guidance on how to adjust my query for accurate results, making the interaction both smooth and intuitive. AI, being a continuous learning beast, even managed to surprise me later. In a fun twist, I revisited this question two days later, and the AI had learned from our prior exchange, connecting percentage thresholds with GPA scores to provide the insights I needed.
Curious to continue, I refined my question further:
Q: “Which students received an ‘A’ in math?”
Although transcripts didn’t explicitly list “math” as a subject, the AI was smart enough to link related electives and provide relevant results.
Intrigued, I decided to explore further:
Q: “Can you provide a list of subjects for which student grades are available?”
Within moments, Qlik Answers offered a well-organized list of subjects it could analyze, complete with links to the original documents. The AI’s ability to access and interpret data directly from transcripts impressed me, enabling efficient analysis of student performance across multiple areas.
Lastly, I wanted to know which students were high achievers across subjects, so I asked:
Q: “Who received an ‘A’ grade in multiple subjects?”
The AI’s response was instant, delivering a list of students excelling across different subjects. This level of flexibility and guidance from an AI-driven BI tool is transformative for educators and administrators interacting with complex data.
Curious about guidance for these “A” graders, I requested insights on possible academic paths. Qlik Answers analyzed the data and provided informed suggestions.
Generative AI combined with BI offers not only quick, intelligent responses but also guidance on how to ask the right questions. With transparent source data, Qlik Answers presents a secure, efficient, and insightful solution for K-12 analytics, paving the way for more informed educational strategies.