[jahmed]

I work in higher ed and we use a student success analytics platform. Where I see this going wrong is administrators want a system to do everything. We want to identify the at-risk student, nudge them automatically, and have a successful outcome. Schools don't want to invest in people to actually make outreach or connection with students because that is hard. As a result, we generate a ton of data with little to show other than numbers.

I'd be very curious to learn about your LMS usage project. Are you saying you identified at-risk students quickly enough to intervene at a point in the term where it made a difference between passing and failing and that the school successfully intervened in those cases?

[ineedasername]

We're not perfect, but as we have brought on analytics systems and engaged in institutions drive projects like my use of Xgboos with LMS data, we have invested heavily in additional advising resources because we recognize that data is irrelevant if you don't have people that will take action on it. I can make data driven predictions all day long about students at risk. What matters is what do we do about it? I've spoken with schools that thought buying an analytics platform was all they had to do. They have universally been disappointed with their lack of results.

[jahmed]

That's great, thanks.

I get frustrated as a technical staff person, who personally enjoys being on the cutting edge, often being the one in meetings saying 'data is great but how will we actually use it?'.

Honestly, I'll probably retire form higher ed in a few years and go work for an outfit like yours.

[ineedasername]

Hah, actually the "outfit like mine" is a university that has relatively recently come to some very good conclusions on this sort of thing. 5 or 6 years ago... Not so much. But one nice thing about working for an institution like this is that mostly people are looking to do the right thing for students, and don't just look at the thing as some commercial revenue extraction machine.

[jahmed]

Ahhhh now I get it. It's so rare for institutions to do internal projects like this I didn't even consider it to be anything but a commercial revenue extraction machine.