Unlocking

Digital DoorsGoing Digital with Course Materials and Approaches to

Drive Engagement & Retention

Dr Colin Marlaire, AVP, National University System

• Retention and Remediation

Initiatives

• Risks and Barriers

• QA at least 10 minutes

Up to State, Current State, Future State

Focus on Constructing Ecosystem

The National University System Not an advertising plug

Approx. 40,000 FTE students

on annual basis; over 4,000 Master Courses and faculty

National University

City University of Seattle

John F Kennedy University

Pre-College Programs

Extended Learning

NU- One Month Format;

Quasi-Open Enrollment

Spectrum of modalities

Large adjunct population

Center for Innovation in

LearningInstructional Design/Curricular

Consultation

Quality Content/Course

Experience

Faculty Concierge

Tier 2 Helpdesk, trends analysis

Vendor Management

Leverage size for best value

System Admin./Web Development

Custom solutions

Platform improvement

e-text

Leverage economies of scale

Faculty Training, Training

Quality Teaching delivered

Strategic Guidance/Project

Management

Technology implementations

New modalities

Course Development, Multimedia

Course building

Production of leading edge content

Business Intelligence

Reporting and dashboards

Structures for data retrieval

CIL

NU

JFK

City

PCP

AMN

Sanford

Quasi-Open Access NU- One Month Format;

Quasi-Open Enrollment

Balance need for success, and need for course work

(student driven)

Open Access

Preparation

NUS’s Evolution- Understanding Context

Today’s Discussion

Gap Analysis

Strategies for Resolving

Risks that must continue to be accounted for

Be

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Exp

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Inte

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Vis

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Image borrowed from a discussion concerning the Kardashev Scale and the Fermi Paradox

Delivery and improvement of curriculum via platforms and technologies

Using data to inform those processes; adaptive solutions to remediate

Gap AnalysisSome addressed now, some in strategy

Attributed to…

Varied Stakeholders/”Customers”

Administration, Staff, Faculty and faculty, Students, Accreditors

Cultural Considerations

Ex. Some consistency is necessary for progress, but anathema in academia

Shifting Technological Landscape

Resources

Historical Factors

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4

Progress

Actual Ideal

Early Analytics- The Danger of the Easy Number

This is what (all) you can

have

The lure of user activity/login

Some benefits moving

forward

Extra-faculty structures for

student

retention/remediation

Some careful remediation

for faculty

Thinking how structures

create efficiencies

Costs Carried Forward of Early “Analytics”

Early on, the intersection of

LMS, faculty, students…

Was implicated to be this…

When in many cases, in truth

it was more this…LMS

StudentsFaculty

LMSStuden

tsFaculty

LMS

StudentsFaculty

Interesting Corollary

Interestingly, there may be a move back to this, in two ways….

The technologies are increasingly integrated and sophisticated internal-to-platform solutions

Thus, more students and faculty are spending more time in course

Many are looking at everything on a device… model would be you can have all the behavior around learning

A lot of cost, human, infrastructure

Reward TBD

LMS

StudentsFaculty

LMS

StudentsFaculty

“Cost” Carried Forward of Early “Analytics”

Not for faculty (?)

Leads to a business cost….

Analytics becomes

associated only with

business needs, not

academic ones (interesting)

Presenting activity as

relevant data to faculty is a

non-starter

This data is not valuable:

therefore all data is not

valuable

Current State-Reporting and Action

Some Good News- Low Hanging Fruit

Student services, automated

and human actions

Zero activity report (student)

“Structured” Retention

opportunities

Academic administration

Faculty pre-course zero

activity

Faculty low-activity

Costs had impact, but were also Impactful

IF this data isn’t useful, than

what is

STUDENT PERFORMANCE ON

OUTCOMES*

If Activity is Not Necessary for Outcome, then…

_______________________________

Flipped classroom

CBE

*I should note that this too is controversial

in some disciplines.

Student Performance On Outcomes

Not a small amount of work

Secondary Rubrics on Outcomes Assessed in Courses

Great data, next step is to bring it to the level of dashboard

Faculty are not accountants

Not to say that they can’t, but why ask them to?

From Data Points to Indicators… Student Success

Dashboard

POC, Surface data as actionable via BB, web services and API

Next Iteration…Students…Badges, Self task

(specializations), Self-Profile

Asset mindset, building deliverables on strategic focus

Behavioral self-assessment; what kind of student are you; know thyself and help us see you

What Do You Want to Happen?

Don’t build a report/dashboard without knowing

the action you want that report to engender

Staff Organizations… as second plane of

course

Make business processes more efficient

Make business processes more visible

Make resources more visible

Create arguments of scale

Better/more effective/immediate remediation

Focus on data on activity and outcome

Pearson Opportunity- Staff

Leverage Pearson solutions to add agile

capacity beyond NU staffing

Pilot and scale

Based on iterative expansion of student

population exposed

Indicators

A Priori

Low credits

Time since last course

Behavioral

Early warning assignment

Pearson Challenge- Faculty

Gap between arrangements made

between vendor and faculty during pilot

stage, and willingness of all faculty to

adopt effectively across courses across

Programs involved.

Confusion of terminology: e-text, e-text

plus, institutional pay, all confused into a

single amorphous concept.

Perception that content/services supplant

versus supplement course activity

Source

Marketplace communication

Early initiatives

Fear of unknown, ownership

Administrative/ground level perspective

What Do You Want to Happen?

For faculty, create an environment where they

see what’s happening in courses

Collaborate on innovation and improvement

Quickly see and scale what is moving the needle

Faculty Dashboard…

Master Course Model

Core experience consistent

Actively encourage faculty to innovate

Embedded Course Feedback Form

CIP, still manual, but far less so, and in the end, necessarily so

Dashboard makes it easy for them to ensure student/faculty success and see potential improvements

Focus on data on activity and outcome

Faculty Organizations

Surface adoption of solutions, a transparent

engagement with visible impact

Collaborate on best practices

Cross-pollinate

Archive improvement activities

Accreditors

Data on activity

Pearson Opportunity- Faculty

Leverage relationship to ensure

thoughtful adoption of solutions

Let solutions already adopted speak for

themselves

BST 322

Focus on known pain points

Student remediation

Student baselining

Collaboration, not Commerce

Replace the perception of “plug and play” with transparent engagement, nuance

Pearson Opportunity- Faculty

>60% of texts

Etext as default

Engagement for those not available

eText “plus” opportunities- intra-course

BST 322

Others

eText “plus” opportuinities- extra-course

Writing, Math, Research, Grit, Technology,

Time Management

Pearson Opportunity- Faculty

Increased appetite for reporting solutions

now provide

MyMathLab: Reporting

Dashboard

MyMathLab: Reporting

Dashboard

Students Do what they need to do

Have a better understanding of why they are

doing it

Understand the type of student they are, the

types of actions that can lead to better success

See and use resources

Students- Usable

Behavioral Bench Marking

Strategic Risks

Cost

How are they allocated

Diffusion of solutions

Uneven resources and

politics

Future State- Human and autonomous solutions

across spectrum

Questions, Thank You