Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Big data, used properly, can drive student success

When big data produces new insights, the results can be stunning. Uncovering new growth opportunities, finding answers to long-asked organizational questions, and using IT resources more effectively are just a few of the outcomes big data can offer.

However, building the integrated data sets necessary for big data to work its magic has historically been challenging for colleges and universities, even more so than for businesses. While higher education institutions do aggregate massive amounts of data, often individual departments collect and review it in isolation.

Fortunately, the introduction of new technology, specifically designed with higher education in mind, is helping to drive a new wave of campus modernization. At Elon University in North Carolina, we’ve been able to harness the power of big data, increasing collaboration across departments and ultimately enhancing the college experience with a true focus on student success. With a renewed campus-wide focus on data and the technology to help us get there, we’ve successfully used big data insights to directly improve student and staff outcomes. Here’s how we did it.…Read More

How our university improved student retention by 5 percent

As a student, choosing a college is a significant decision that has a lifelong impact, personally and professionally. Many factors come into play: the campus experience, available academic programs, cost, sports and athletic opportunities, residences, and word-of-mouth referrals.

Once a selection is made and the student enrolls, many of these same factors will also determine how students perceive their college experience. Living conditions, their roommate, how they finance their education, the groups they’re involved in, and the friends they meet, all shape student success—and that’s a perennial challenge for administrators charged with improving retention rates.

Uncovering retention insights with big data
As vice president for academic administration at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, making sense of the vast array of data that we know about students is critical to our objective of closing the student retention gap and developing programs that provide encouragement, coaching, and advice to those who exhibit the earliest signs of dropout risk.…Read More

How big data is driving innovation at Elon University

When big data produces new insights, the results can be stunning. Uncovering new growth opportunities, finding answers to long-asked organizational questions, and using IT resources more effectively are just a few of the outcomes big data can offer.

However, building the integrated data sets necessary for big data to work its magic has historically been challenging for colleges and universities, even more so than for businesses. While higher education institutions do aggregate massive amounts of data, often individual departments collect and review it in isolation.

Fortunately, the introduction of new technology, specifically designed with higher education in mind, is helping to drive a new wave of campus modernization. At Elon University in North Carolina, we’ve been able to harness the power of big data, increasing collaboration across departments and ultimately enhancing the college experience with a true focus on student success. With a renewed campus-wide focus on data and the technology to help us get there, we’ve successfully used big data insights to directly improve student and staff outcomes. Here’s how we did it.…Read More

5 ways data humanizes the student experience

University leaders know data is critical to their success, and many institutions are leveraging data to humanize the student experience and improve student outcomes.

During SXSW EDU, Scott Pulsipher, president of Western Governor’s University (WGU), and Marni Baker Stein, WGU’s provost and chief academic officer, outlined some of the ways WGU uses data to improve its performance at all levels.

WGU, which is competency-based and totally online, adheres to a student-centric model that tailors learning experiences to student needs, Pulsipher says, and it focuses on programs instead of individual courses. In those programs, competencies are aligned with workforce demands. The goal is to produce students who are equipped to excel in the workforce.…Read More

Big data–you’ve got it, now what?

The adoption of big data in higher education has been relatively slow due, in part, to privacy concerns. The sheer volume of information can also be overwhelming. Institutions may not know how to best harness and make sense of such large amounts of data.

But the big data trend is just beginning. A 2016 Forbes article stated that institutions are increasingly becoming aware of how useful and impactful big data can be for everything from assessment to accreditation. And, even more important, quality tools now exist to help institutions gather, store, and analyze this data so it can be used to improve student success.

Higher education leaders should be proactive about both recognizing the potential of harnessing big data and pursuing the right tools, programs, and people to manage it. Here are some things they should consider.…Read More

Partnership gives students and career coaches data on career skills needed

InsideTrack, a provider of student success coaching for enrollment, retention, and career development recently announced a partnership with labor market analytics company Emsi to integrate career assessments and real-time employment market data across its coaching solutions.

Coaches will now be better able to guide students through the career exploration and development process and equip them with insights on the knowledge and skills that employers demand, as well as salary projections at the regional and local level.

With the majority of college students citing improved career opportunities as their primary reason for pursuing a credential, leading colleges and universities are responding by integrating career exploration and readiness throughout the student lifecycle. For example, career-centric coaching is quickly becoming an integral part of the enrollment process, to support students in making informed decisions on academic programs and prepare them to take full advantage of career development opportunities once enrolled.…Read More

Batman’s new gig: Data science superhero?

High demand for data scientists makes them real-life superheroes among employers–but which fictional superhero would make a great data scientist? Batman would make a great data scientist, according to 43 percent of people participating in a poll conducted by data science training provider Metis.

Not everyone agreed with the poll’s outcome. One Twitter respondent asked, “Does Bruce Wayne even know how to code?” “Barbara Gordon is literally a data scientist and she’s in second place, which says a lot about our society,” another weighed in.

Also known as Batgirl or Oracle, Barbara Gordon came in second with 23 percent of the vote, while Black Panther and Wonder Woman followed with 19 percent and 15 percent, respectively.…Read More

Is this the new class every freshman should take?

With the high-school graduation season over, it’s time for grads and parents alike to celebrate and relax a bit – and maybe enjoy a long summer before recently minted graduates start college or a new job.

But here is something to contemplate (hopefully not too strenuously) over the coming summer weeks and months: What is the next learning step in the graduate’s preparation for a future career?

Whether a recent graduate plans to study 18th Century English literature in college or jump right into the workforce in any number of jobs, I have a one-word suggestion for them: Data.…Read More

There are much better ways to measure student engagement—here’s how

The software that visualizes data trends and helps organizations make informed, key decisions has significantly evolved in recent years. Higher education institutions are finding innovative ways to leverage this data in order to measure how engaged their students are, and to identify ways to help them reach success; however, there is still more they can do, and in different ways, to better measure student engagement.

The Current Climate for Measuring Engagement

As higher education progressively uses more technology to support teaching and learning, institutions have access to data from software like learning management systems (LMS) that indicates how users interact and perform throughout their learning path. Access to this data lets institutions explore new ways of understanding how faculty are teaching and how students are learning.…Read More

How universities can use big data to land grads careers

Over the past few weeks, graduation ceremonies have been taking place all over the world. This is an exciting time for everyone in higher education, as institutions and communities recognize their students’ academic achievements.

While every guest speaker will laud these graduates’ academic accomplishments, many will also speak of the world that’s waiting for them once they step off of that stage, all with an air of hope and positivity—and also some uncertainty.

Have faculty, administrators and advisors actually prepared these students for the “real world” and aligned programs, degrees and training with the job market? Without diminishing the quality of the academic program, have students made the right choices to fulfill their ambitions and aspirations and begin their contributions to society?…Read More