Managing with Information and Data
INFS6018
Group Assignment
CRICOS 00026A
Assessment
Type:
Written Report and Data
Visualisation
Length: 6000 word report (+/-10%
and excluding references)
Due Date: 21 May 2023 at 23:00
(late penalties will apply)
Weighting: 40% of the overall grade
Understanding and improving gender equality in Australian workplaces
Background
Under the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, non-public sector employers with 100 or more staff
must report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) annually. This Act covers over 12,000
Australian organisations. This assignment focuses on creating scenarios and data visualisations to
identify opportunities for promoting and improving gender equality in workplaces in a real-life
context.
Review the information and instructions below to complete and submit your group assignment via
Turnitin on Canvas.
Objective
Implementation of a small-scale Business Intelligence project called “Improving Gender Equality in
Australian Enterprises”. You will report via the scenario below on the current state of gender equality in
Australian organisations and offer evidence-based suggestions on how it can be improved.
The main objective for this assignment is to develop your critical thinking skills in designing and
implementing a BI project in any context, including organisational, industry-wide, or societal and being
able to work independently and as a team member.
Scenario
In this real-life based project, you are required to develop a report and a visual analysis of the nature
of challenges concerning gender equality within and across enterprises and propose initiatives to
overcome them. To do this you are considering the decision-making needs of three different design
personas, as specified below.
The three different personas have different needs and requirements and your answers should reflect
this. Design an archetype based on the information below for each.
Design personas are different types of users grouped into the so-called “archetypes” (Godwin, 2009).
Archetypes are typically built / designed after in-depth observations and interviews of potential users.
The resulting persona is designed to represent a fictional (but believable) character whose profile sums
up the features of a whole (existing) group of similar users (Godwin, 2009). Each persona represents
much more than a typical user.
Personas are often named (e.g., “Professor Sandra”) to emphasise human-centred design thinking.
However, they do not represent a single (named) user but characteristics of a group of people whose
needs have been considered.
Managing with Information and Data
INFS6018
Group Assignment
CRICOS 00026A
Tasks
The main priority is to make sure all group members share tasks equally and agree to timelines for
getting the project finished by the due date. Group work, done well, can be very rewarding. If it is
not done well it can cause frustration and resentment. To help groups work well we require each group
to prepare a project charter and work on the basis of it.
Note: In finalising your charter, please be clear about the deadlines for key output arising from this
project. A template for a group charter is provided in the ‘Other Resources’ section at the end of this
document.
1 Design of
Personas
• Research each persona’s roles, work contexts and decision needs and then
describe each persona using the template provided in the ‘Further
Resources’ section at the end of this document.
• For each persona, you are required to state three non-trivial questions they
will be able to answer by using your BI application.
• Questions that can be answered by a very simple query of the data which,
for example, returns only one or two values, will be considered trivial. For
example, a question such as “Which industries have a low percentage of
female CEOs?” is considered trivial.
• On the other hand, non-trivial questions involve more than one
dimension and ideally have the potential to offer something interesting,
insightful, and even unexpected. Apply your critical thinking skills to
develop and improve non-trivial questions through group discussions.
• In particular, report on how the situation in 2022 concerning the issue of
interest to your persona is similar or different to the situation as it was in
previous years.
2 Harvest, Clean
and Analyse
Data
In this step you need to analyse the data-related needs of all personas.
You need to “harvest” data i.e., download relevant .xlsx data from your main
data source (WGEA) and store the resulting data records of the years in which
you are interested as an Excel file.
YOU DO NOT NECESSARILY NEED ALL THE YEARS – HOWEVER, IF IT IS
RELEVANT ANALYSIS OF TRENDS OVER TIME SHOULD BE UNDERTAKEN!
PLEASE ONLY USE DATA FROM WGEA AND NOT ADDITIONAL
DATABASES. YOU SHOULD REFERENCE OTHER SOURCES IN YOUR
DISCUSSION BUT NOT IN YOUR TABLEAU ANALYSIS
• You also need to identify priority data items of interest to your personas.
• Be aware that the dataset has a lot of potential data items of interest.
• What are potentially the most relevant ones for your personas?
• In this stage, you acquaint yourself with what data might be useful.
• You will have to decide what to include and what to exclude.
• Sometimes the hardest part of this stage is letting go of interesting data
that is not directly relevant to your personas and the questions in which they
are interested.
One major challenge you will face is to clean the data you download to ensure
consistency and correctness across your data files. The WGEA database, for

Managing with Information and Data
INFS6018
Group Assignment
CRICOS 00026A
example, holds great value but as it comprises 589 features (columns), names
of the majority of these features have been abbreviated. You should always
ensure that your visualizations are easy to interpret for a wide range of
audiences.
3 Design of a BI
Application
Using the Excel file from Step 2, import your dataset into Tableau.
Then proceed to use data visualisation features of Tableau to answer all
questions for the three personas, as stated in your design templates (in Step 1).
For each persona’s question provide a critical discussion including a
• justification of the question,
• interpretation of the results
• reflect upon the question/results relevance to the persona and why the
question is non-trivial.
Note that Step 3 may initiate another cycle of iterative design, prompting you
to go back to Steps 1 and 2 to expand or refine them.
4 Reflection On
Action
This important step requires us to “step back” and consider your project
findings in a broader organisational and societal context. For the purposes of
this assignment, you are required to use the PAPA framework to identify and
analyse any data related ethical issues that need to be considered in your
project. Even if you think that your use of data and implementation of a BI
application do not pose any ethical risks, you are still required to demonstrate
your analysis of ethical issues using the PAPA framework (relevant documents
are posted on Canvas).
5 Draw
Conclusions
Summarise findings and think how they can be actioned to help each persona
reach their goals and what you would do next to help them. How would you
operationalise the findings?
Personas
You are required to design three personas to represent three groups of users. For the personas, you
must use WGEA data from the year 2022 and prior years.
1 Senior Manager Jane’ has been oppressed in her current workplace and would like to change
jobs. She has trained as an accountant and worked in the financial services sector and is prepared
to change industries. What industries should she contemplate working in that favour workplace
gender equality?
2 ‘Data Analyst Jessica’ works for a consulting firm and has been asked to develop a deep
understanding of the common features that apply to organisations with greater than 100 or more
employees that has successfully embraced workplace gender equality.
3 ‘Union Representative Katie’ represents workers employed in the health sector. Katie wants to
understand the workplace gender equality issues facing the health sector and how they differ from
other sectors represented by unions and what can be done where the gap is negative.
Group Report Structure
1 Introduction A brief description of your project and its envisaged value for different
communities of users (e.g., Why would anyone use your analysis?)
Managing with Information and Data
INFS6018
Group Assignment
CRICOS 00026A
2 Design Templates For three personas (i.e., 3 tables) clearly showing the corresponding non-
trivial discursive questions
3 Overview of Data
Set
With all attributes (e.g., Excel columns) listed and clearly defined in
separate tables with summary discussion. You should create a separate
summary table for all three personas. For each of the overview tables,
include all the necessary attributes for each of the three questions
associated with each persona. See the example table in the ‘Other
Resources’ section at the end of this document.
4 Discussion of Key
Findings
Refer to Tasks above
5 Conclusion and
Recommendations
• Summary of lessons learned in this project.
• What would you do differently next time?
• What would you do next if you had more time and money to make the
results more meaningful?
• Reflect upon what applications your analysis might have to other
stakeholders (beyond the three clients) and what you would do next.
• Discuss the limitations of your analysis and how you would overcome
them if you had more time and money.
• Note: Limitations are not what you or your group personally found difficult
but limitations in your analysis - perhaps because of data quality issues or
because of limited access to certain data.
• Finally, offer actionable (specific tasks) recommendations for each of the
three clients.
6 References • See below, apply Harvard Style.
7 Appendices Please include a sample of your resulting dataset for each Persona (i.e.,
the actual Excel records). To create this Figure,
• filter and group the data using “Insert Table” on Excel
• transfer them to a new sheet; and
• copy the Excel cells and paste them directly to Word or take a snapshot
(SHIFT+WINDOWS+S) of up to 20 rows of the Excel file & paste it into
a Word document.
• Please ensure 1 data cut for each persona and include ALL the data
attributes relating to each question for each cut.
• Note: Shown dataset needs to correspond to the previous overview –
see Step 3. Include around 20 rows for each data cut.
Persona Resources
The following references provide the necessary foundations for the persona part of your project:
• See materials in Week 8 - Canvas
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_(user_experience)
• http://www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/40

Managing with Information and Data
INFS6018
Group Assignment
CRICOS 00026A
Assessment Notice
Do not upload more than one (1) report per group. We will only mark the first one uploaded.
Assessment Criteria
Please refer to the ‘Business School Grade Descriptors’ document posted on the Unit of Study Canvas
site in the Assignments tab. These grade descriptors are used as a basis for constructing the marking
schemes in all assessments.
No Criteria Points
1 Content - Depth of the personas, the quality and relevance of the questions, the dataset
selected. This includes the relevance and accuracy of the information provided, the
depth of analysis, and the quality of research. This also includes the use of the PAPA
framework.
25
2 Presentation - This includes the visual appeal of project, the structure and organisation
of a coherent argument and presentation of the assignment. This also includes the clarity
of writing, and the use of appropriate referencing and citation
10
3 Collaboration - This includes the participation and contribution of all members of the
group, conflict management, the ability to work effectively as a team, and the
adherence to deadlines and timelines. Evidence of the Project Charter being completed
and complied with. Evidence of Progress Reports and allocation and completion of tasks
by all group members.
5
Total 40
Additional Instructions
• A title for the report, group number, and your student IDs to be inserted on the first page of the
report.
• Note: You are not required to use the Business School cover page template.
• Ensure Student ID numbers of all members are inserted in the top right-hand corner of the
document.
• Be sure to annotate any diagrams with a few sentences to explain key elements and relationships.
• You should use the APA 7th Edition Referencing Style:
https://libguides.library.usyd.edu.au/citation/apa7
Case Resources
Information and articles:
• https://www.wgea.gov.au/about
This site has lots of resources. To get a rapid insight into the issue of gender equality and how it
can be improved at the workplace level look at the case studies of organisational change on this
site.
▪ https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2016C00895
Managing with Information and Data
INFS6018
Group Assignment
CRICOS 00026A
▪ https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/women/programs-services/economic-security/the-
workplace-gender-equality-act-2012
▪ https://theconversation.com/a-law-on-workplace-gender-equality-is-under-review-heres-what-
needs-to-change-172406
▪ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02497/full
▪ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00221856211035173
▪ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gwao.12742
Data Sources
2022 WGEA Data
• 2022 WGEA Data - Public Data File | Resources | data.gov.au - beta
2022 WGEA Data - List of Organisations
• 2022 WGEA Data - List of Organisations by ABN | Resources | data.gov.au - beta
2022 WGEA Data - Specifications
• 2022 WGEA Data - Specifications | Resources | data.gov.au - beta
When writing up and implementing your assignment, you may also consider online information
provided on the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 and other similar datasets pertaining to earlier
years available at WGEA Dataset | Datasets | data.gov.au - beta
Submission Deadlines
Final Report 21 May 2023
Submission Instructions
• All Excel and Tableau files created in this project need to be uploaded and stored under your
Group folder in Canvas. These files will be used to verify and assess your work.
• The files need to be submitted by the deadline for your group report to be considered.
• Group reports submitted without corresponding files will not be marked.
• Important: Please do not submit your project files through Turnitin but upload them under your
group folder on Canvas.
Please note the teaching team are unable to help with technical issues. If you have difficulties, please
contact IT Support. See:
• https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/student-it.html
Referencing guidelines, academic integrity, and plagiarism
You must acknowledge all the sources of material you have used in your assessments.
Academic integrity is about honest presentation of your academic work. It means acknowledging the
work of others while developing your own insights, knowledge, and ideas.
You should take extreme care that you have:
• Acknowledged words, data, diagrams, models, frameworks and/or ideas of others you have
quoted (i.e., directly copied), summarised, paraphrased, discussed, or mentioned in your assessment
through the appropriate referencing methods,
Managing with Information and Data
INFS6018
Group Assignment
CRICOS 00026A
• Provided a bibliography of the publication details so your reader can locate the source if
necessary. This includes material taken from Internet sites.
If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because
you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they
were your own.
The University of Sydney treats plagiarism as a very serious offence constituting misconduct.
Plagiarism covers a variety of inappropriate behaviours, including:
• Failure to properly document a source.
• Copyright material from the internet or databases.
• Collusion between students.
For further information on our policies and procedures, please refer to the University website and see.
• https://libguides.library.usyd.edu.au/citation
• https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/academic-dishonesty.html
• https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/writing/referencing.html
Note: if you use generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools (e.g., ChatGPT) you must be sure to
reference and quote (with quotation marks) any materials you use from generative AI and include a
footnote on that slide explaining how you used it. For example, details on what terms you inputted and
how many times you asked generative AI to refine the answers. Please also provide a brief
explanation of why this was useful in your analysis in the footnote. Please note generative AI does not
review materials after 2021.
Assessment Declaration
You agree to the assessment declaration when you submit work electronically.
Other Resources
The following resources have been provided to help you complete different part of the group project.
• Persona Design Template
• Persona Attributes Template
• Project Committee Charter Template
• Project Progress Report Template
• Guidance on Data Quality Issues