The design and development of a social science data warehouse: A case study of the Human Resources Development Data Warehouse Project of the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa

Abstract

This article focuses on the development of a data warehouse to facilitate government decision-making on national human resources development and to provide public access to information. A set of key challenges was confronted in the development of the data warehouse including: the conceptualisation, design, implementation and management of the data warehouse system. The underlying questions that informed the process were, first: "In what ways will a data warehouse for a social science based research project be different from other database structures?" And second: "What are the particular management problems associated with large-scale long term social science based database projects?"