Generation of Customized Dashboards Through Software Product Line Paradigms to Analyse University Employment and Employability Data

Abstract

University employment and, specifically, employability has steadily gained relevance nowadays as the study of these fields can lead to improvement in the quality of life of individual citizens. However, the empirical research is still insufficient to make significant decisions within this domain. It is necessary to rely on powerful tools in order to reach insights about university employment and employability. Information dashboards have become a key software tool to reach insights and make informed decisions about a specific topic, domain or field of study. Nevertheless, dashboards’ users can have several requirements that differ from each other (including displayed information itself, design features or even functionalities), and it is necessary to take into account all of these specifications, allowing users to exploit data with its own necessities and aiming to its own goals. Applying software product line paradigms, it is plausible to face different requirements regarding information dashboards’ development in an efficient, scalable and maintainable way. To validate this approach, a case study is presented in the context of the Spanish Observatory of Employability and University Employment, an organization that aims to become an information reference for these fields.