Academic Information Systems

The importance of student success (commonly measured as degree completion) continues to rise, as does the demand for institutional accountability. Academic analytics can help institutions address student success and accountability while better fulfilling their academic missions. Academic systems generate a wide array of data that can predict retention and graduation. Academic analytics marries that data with statistical techniques and predictive modeling to help faculty and advisors determine which students may face academic difficulty, allowing interventions to help them succeed. This paper highlights what IT and institutional leaders need to understand about academic analytics, including changes it may require in data standards, systems, processes, policies, and institutional culture.

Bates College determined that the process for generating print and Web versions of the course catalog needed streamlining and to include a primary goal of significantly reducing production costs. As a first step in cost reduction, the college moved to a biennial catalog production cycle. Need analysis began in late August 2003. The new process for completing the project was in place in August 2004 and resulted in both the print and Web catalogs being delivered in record time. A number of questions were addressed in developing the process: - Can authoritative catalog data be kept in a central location?- Can different administrative departments directly manage their components of the catalog? - Can access to the catalog data be administered in a consistent and uniform way? - Can the print catalog be generated automatically? - Can a dynamic Web catalog be produced from the print catalog source data? - Can all of this be accomplished with our current systems and only a small amount of custom programming?

Although advances in social networking technologies allow for new and perhaps more efficient means of learning and communicating, they also pose some significant challenges in higher education, especially for those campus professionals who provide student and academic services.

ELI's Innovations & Implementations series highlights innovative teaching, learning, and technology practices in higher education. Each Innovations & Implementations piece provides a practical overview of an innovation, focusing on its significance and implementation issues. Use Innovations & Implementations to explore innovative practices that might be of value to your institution.

This case study illustrates how UCSD has accomplished a significant business process redesign through Sponsored Project Excellence Achieved through Redesign (SPEAR), a project in research and grants management. The case study describes the development and implementation of that project, as well as presenting UCSD's efforts with business analytics. Innovative tools including balanced scorecards, dashboards, and other business applications support these initiatives through changes in technology and shifts in administrative organization.

This case study examines how developing a data-driven decision-making environment through academic analytics has challenged the University of Phoenix throughout its central and campus organizations. It describes some of the issues involved in moving from the collection of data to the ultimate use of that data. Through overviews and very specific examples, the complex Phoenix structures and processes provide examples of academic analytics at unit and institutional levels.