Twitter and Learning

What are specific ways that faculty can use Twitter in the classroom – and outside it – in ways that aid student learning? Several studies at Michigan State University over the past couple of years have produced some fascinating findings about college students and Twitter: A 2010 study led by Jeff Grabill found that college […]

Survey Report: Online Giving, Mobile Apps

Market research firm IDC projected last year that by 2015 in the US, more people will access online content through mobile devices than through wired Internet connections, and many institutions are reporting sharp increases in the web traffic they are seeing from mobile devices. For example, Brett Pollak, director of the campus web office for […]

Predicting Student Success: Rethinking GPA

In Academic Impressions’ recent edition of Higher Ed Impact: Monthly DIagnostic, “Success Leaves Clues: Predictive Modeling in Higher Education,” we interviewed a number of experts to provide a conceptual overview of how institutions can take steps toward a more rigorous mining of their current and historical student data to identify predictors not only of which […]

Mining Your Data: From Students to Alumni

Your institution has enrolled a strong class of students, and a high percentage of them have persisted and are thriving academically. Now it is the senior year. In a few months, these students will graduate, and, if you do not engage them proactively now, you will lose your best opportunity to invite them to engage […]

A Data-Informed Approach to Student Retention

Few institutions are performing sophisticated predictive modeling on factors affecting student retention, and given how many factors there are (both within and outside the institution’s control), predictive modeling can appear quite daunting. But you don’t have to go from A to Z all at once. “Typically,” Jim Scannell, president of Scannell & Kurz Inc, advises, […]

Data-Informed Recruitment and Enrollment

Moving beyond high school GPA and standardized test scores, you will want to look for predictors of student success and affinity for your institution by analyzing data on your past and current students at each stage of their relationship with your institution. Identify shared characteristics of those students who model behaviors you want to encourage. […]

Success Leaves Clues: Predictive Modeling in Higher Education

Included in This Report: October 2012. Given increasing competition, shifts in student enrollment, and reduced resource levels, it’s critical that colleges and universities recruit and retain the students who are most likely to succeed at their institutions. By reviewing data on current and past students and alumni, and engaging in predictive modeling, you can identify […]

Reviewing Your Data: What You Might Find

With scarce resources, it’s time to become increasingly savvy about the students you recruit and enroll, how you support them in ways that make a difference in their academic success and persistence, and how you approach the student-to-alumni transition. Success Leaves Clues Look at your past and current students and your current donors to identify […]

When a Crisis Occurs: The President as Spokesperson

At a recent Chicago-area panel of crisis communications experts – a panel attended by media relations professionals from local higher education, government, and business entities – one of the top five questions presented to the experts was: When should your president serve as a spokesperson during a crisis, rather than your chief communications officer? We […]

DFW Rates and You: Rethinking Support for At-Risk Students

In a recent interview with Academic Impressions, Bernadette Jungblut, West Virginia University’s director of assessment and retention, noted with some dismay that too frequently institutions have used data on individual courses’ D/fail/withdraw rates primarily as a means of performance evaluation for faculty, rather than partnering with faculty in taking a closer look at the DFW […]