Dive Brief:
- The University of Kentucky aims to close the gap in understanding student engagement by analyzing real-time data, rather than relying on institutional data from past terms.
- Campus Technology reports the university is partnering with Echo360 and will use its new analytics platform to monitor the engagement of current students and help faculty and advisors respond more effectively to retention and completion challenges.
- The Echo360 system analyzes student performance in courses, gauging their confusion on certain topics and monitoring note-taking, class participation, and collaboration among peers.
Dive Insight:
Student engagement, which leads to retention, is becoming an increasing concern of administrators who want to retain tuition revenue and ensure student outcomes are positive. Average student debt continues to rise, making students and their families focus more on the return on investment of certain degrees. State legislatures continue to change funding formulas in many states to support schools for helping students succeed, rather than just enroll. All of the motivating factors are there to improve on current analytics systems or develop new ones. Ivy Tech is even taking its analytics system beyond student outcomes, turning it toward institutional processes and faculty performance.