“They don’t feel invisible, even in a very large classroom,” said Nancy Wilson Head, executive director for information technology in Purdue’s Teaching and Learning Technologies Unit, when the program launched last year. “They feel like the faculty member really wants to motivate them to improve.”
The educational technology effort is an example of SunGard Higher Educations Open Digital Campus strategy, which encourages collaboration among customers and with the company.
At Metropolitan Community College-Kansas City, a beta site for Course Signals, the school benefited from features such as the solution’s ability to pull demographic information from the college’s PeopleSoft student information system into the predictive model, and its ease of use for faculty.
“We have a lot of students who are the first in their families to attend college, or who have other demographics that indicate they might be at risk early on,” said Tuesday Stanley, vice chancellor of administrative services and student development at the college. “The other solutions we have seen only consider grades when identifying at-risk students. The inclusion of demographics, as well as effort, is a critical piece of the equation in helping these students succeed.”
“Institutions are facing increased pressure to improve [student] retention and graduation rates. In fact, many states are tying improvements in retention and graduation rates to enrollment funding,” said Tom Wagner, vice president of product management and strategy for SunGard Higher Education’s student retention and success offerings. “Course Signals’ built-in, customizable predictive model, and its focus on faculty and course-level success, is a critical addition to traditional early warning systems as well as to other retention-related solutions and services from SunGard Higher Education.”
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