Posts Tagged ‘student retention’

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Student Retention: Project fulCRM at Roehampton University

Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

Photo of a brass compassProject fulCRM, funded by JISC, at Roehampton University has brought together two existing processes, one technical and one manual, in order to reduce the number of students leaving their course early.

Challenges

The initial challenges faced by the project team included:

  • over 2000 mitigating circumstances requests were made each year by students in the University, which were all handled manually
  • lack of consistency in the way in which mitigating circumstances were handled, which was a cause for student concern
  • data formats that are not designed to integrate with other applications.

Benefits

Two existing processes (a spreadsheet-based Early Warning System of lack of attendance and other indicators and the manual process of applying for mitigating circumstances) have been improved by taking a technological approach. This has resulted in a number of benefits for staff and students alike, including:

  • improved communication by ensuring that students are kept informed via e-mail of the progress of the mitigating circumstances process
  • flagging up of students who need additional support
  • automated data collection which has replaced complex and time-consuming activities and reduced staff workload.

Recommendations

Students now feel that the technological improvements provide them with a safety net and they will also be able to view their performance alongside their tutor. However, arriving at this stage has not been easy and the following suggestions may help:

  • in order to gain acceptance across a number of disparate Departments, ensure that any system can cater for the creation of different student performance indicators
  • if data (such as data relating to the number of times a student accesses a VLE) is held in the cloud, accessing that data and moving it across to private university servers may pose a security risk, therefore additional servers with secure links direct to the VLE may need to be built
  • do not underestimate the amount of manipulation required to access complex data which is often housed in various disparate systems.

Further Information

If you would like to find out more about this project, the following resources may help:

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Student Retention: Support for All Project at North Glasgow College

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

Photo of a brass compassThe JISC funded Support for All project at North Glasgow College has been trying to improve access to learner support, both on and off-campus. This project is based at an FE (Further Education) College, which tends to face different issues fro those faced by HE (Higher Education) colleagues.

Challenges

The project team team has tried to formalise the thought processes and relationships regarding provision of support and identified a number of challenges, including:

  • developments in the real-world can get ahead of institutional strategy; e.g. there are issues around allowing the College to use Facebook
  • the lack of strategy around the introduction of new technologies, such as iPads
  • changes in personnel can affect any improvements being made.

Benefits

The project team established several new approaches to improve access to student support, including:

  • a structured and auditable “pipeline of support” through which learners can move; the ten steps in this process can be used as a checklist for performance evaluation of the support offered
  • a Blackboard mobile app was implemented, alongside access to iPads, in order to extend access to support. This not only gives students access to learning content but also allows the learner to submit medical self-certification forms electronically
  • these improvements should lead to increased student confidence, performance and retention.

Recommendations

When tackling improvements at a time when resources are scarce, it can be helpful to:

  • give staff responsible for delivering a service the chance to take ownership of any activities leading to process improvement
  • encourage staff to complete bite-sized activities so that they are not taken away from day-to-day operations, as this may reduce resentment to any new methods of working
  • make small improvements, even if resources are scarce. For example, whilst social media services, such as Facebook, were seen as positive ways to interact with support services by students, staff resources weren’t available at the College to manage this. The project team addressed this issue by designing postcards with QR codes, so that students can get immediate access via their smartphone to the support team’s e-mail.

Further Information

If you would like to find out more about this project, the following resources may help:

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MOOCs and Carrots

Sunday, September 30th, 2012

Photo of a bunch of carrots

I’ve just started a free online Coursera course on HCI (Human-Computer Interaction). This is my first time taking an online course and I thought I’d share some of my observations on both the course and on using a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).

The HCI course is being run by Stanford University and consists of a number of short video lectures, peer-evaluated assignments and online quizzed. There is a student forum, free access to software to help with the course, and lots of text and videos to support the general interaction with the course.

The first thing that struck me about the HCI course itself was how much it will complement my existing work as an e-learning technologist in the accessibility field, as well as there being similarities with the service design approach, which has been part of my Relationship Management work. In fact, there are quite a number of e-learning technologists on the course.

The second thing that really stood out was the wide variety of the types of people from around the world taking the course. Apart from the obvious – students taking this course as a complement to their main study and people in employment upgrading or complementing their existing skills – there are mothers with young children, housebound people, people with disabilities, people who don’t live anywhere near an educational institution that offers such a course, unemployed people, etc. These are very much non-traditional students who would be unable to attend a class in a traditional setting. Perhaps the rise in MOOCs won’t necessarily threaten the current university sector but will complement it by attracting those on the fringes of mainstream education?

There are some differences between attending an educational institution as a real student and as a virtual student. Perhaps the biggest one might be the social and collaborative aspect. If one is motivated to attend class for social reasons (e.g. seeing a different group of people, doing something outside of the normal day-to-day routine, etc), then one may be more likely to continue. However, no-one is going to notice if one hasn’t attended a virtual class! Perhaps one way to encourage attendance in online classes to offer a carrot. In the case of the HCI class, students who successfully complete the course will be awarded a “statement of accomplishment” signed by the tutor and there are grade penalties if you miss assignments or don’t take part in peer evaluation. Not all classes offer this, so it will be interesting to know whether offering a sort of certificate really makes a difference to drop-out rates. If I manage to make it to the end, I’ll let you know!

Carrots photo by vierdrie.

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Posted in SLRM, accessibility, relationship management | 1 Comment »

Student Retention: Learner Analytics at Loughborough University

Monday, September 24th, 2012

Photo of a brass compassThe JISC funded Pedestal for Progression project at Loughborough University has focussed on bringing together information from their in-house Co-Tutor dashboard and other systems to help tutors be pro-active in their response to “at risk” students.

Challenges

The project team found that having access to the data is not enough, there needs to be a balance between automated and human interventions, for example:

  • educational data mining is complex and will be unsuccessful if used solely to identify “at risk” students without human intervention processes being designed
  • incorporating more student-centred approaches into the development of exisiting systems (such as VLEs, student data systems, attendance recording systems etc) can be challenging
  • changes in processes and the introduction of new software systems can be seen as threatening to staff.

Benefits

The project team looked at both staff and student needs by:

  • using service design techniques to help identify learner needs, such as flexibility of study, planning of deadlines for coursework, and employability, for example
  • providing more and better quality learner information to help a tutor be more active in identifying and supporting “at risk” students; for example teaching sessions where attendance is taken electronically are designated as being “critical” or not, so e-mails are sent only to students missing “critical” sessions
  • developing a standardised process for managing placements across three departments in order to reduce student anxiety around the process.

Recommendations

The relationships that students have with staff are vital to the enhancement of the student experience, but the relationships that staff have within in the organisation are also important. For example:

  • provide staff with access to learner data to help them identify any human interventions that need to be made
  • use the student voice to influence improvements
  • sincere management buy-in is critical, otherwise an institution’s organisational structure will remain a barrier no matter what improvements are suggested.

Further Information

If you would like to find out more about this project, the following resources may help:

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Student Retention: Engagement Analytics at University of Derby

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Photo of a brass compassThe University of Derby has been scoping early indicators (engagement analytics) for spotting students at risk of withdrawing in their SETL (Student Experience Traffic Lighting) project.

Challenges

Institutions generally hold a vast array of data about students, often in different systems which are not always interoperable. The data challenges experienced in this project include:

  • predisposing factors, such as responsibility as a carer, means that students are more likely to withdraw from their studies, however it’s not always possible to capture this type of data as it’s not generally held in any IT system
  • there is little interoperability between different data systems; for example, the data required to populate an engagement dashboard is held in at least seven different systems at the University
  • each student is an individual who brings with them individual challenges to succeeding at and engaging with higher education

Benefits

Scoping out the type of data to be included in a dashboard of core engagement data:

  • means that staff would be able to view a student’s level of engagement with the institution; for example, linking data on absences, access to the library and the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) could help a tutor see if the student was still engaging in the course, even if they were absent due to illness
  • has produced a change of thinking in the way students at risk of withdrawing will be supported at the University; i.e. it will be more proactive than reactive
  • has helped staff identify key points in the student lifecycle where students are most likely to be at risk of withdrawal.

Recommendations

Engagement analytics goes beyond the hard data recorded in learning analytics, because:

  • it’s dangerous to make decisions about student engagement based solely on a set of data, as understanding the context of the data is important and developing the relationship between the tutor and student is essential
  • both staff and students find it useful to have their own customisable engagement dashboards
  • soft data that can’t always be found on institutional systems should also be recorded and considered.

Further Information

If you would like to find out more about this project, the following resources may help:

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