The Virginia Community College System--one of the largest in the country, with 23 colleges on 40 campuses--has leveraged business analytics to help streamline information processes, achieve cost efficiencies, encourage data and information sharing and transparency, and identify ways to offer improved service to the community. Here, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Institutional Effectiveness Catherine Finnegan talks with Campus Technology about VCCS's use of business analytics.
In May 2011, WCET announced the receipt of funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to begin work on the Predictive Analytics Reporting Framework. Now, a federated dataset has been created and PAR researchers have already begun to analyze the data, looking for variables affecting student performance and success. Here, WCET Executive Director Ellen Wagner comments on this milestone for the PAR Framework and on plans to expand the database to increase opportunities for sharing predictive analytics more widely.
A new report from education data coalition Data Quality Campaign is calling on policymakers to strengthen links between K-12, workforce, and post-secondary institutions.
Moving course evaluations online saves schools money, time--even trees. But it doesn't mean more students will complete the surveys. Here's how to bump up those response rates.
Where are students finding the materials they plagiarize in their papers? According to a new study, WIkipedia tops the list for both secondary and college students. But as a category, encyclopedia sites are among the least popular sources, coming in behind four other types of information outlets, including both academic sites and paper mills.
Pearson recently released an update to its digital repository, Equella. The 5.1 release includes new tools for working with Microsoft Office files, new notifications, and integration with Flickr and YouTube.
Ed tech developer Promethean has launched a new and significantly enhanced generation of classroom response systems, ActivExpression2.
Trent Batson's recent survey of ePortfolio technology providers shows that there's a move in the ePortfolio marketplace now, from its earlier concentration on institutional assessment portfolios to the inclusion of a wider range of products that support student-centered as well as institution-centered portfolios--opening up the potential for new learning designs.
StudyBoost has released a mobile platform that helps student learn using text- or instant messaging-based quizzes.
The University of Kansas has created an online system that helps students learn the writing process and lets teachers evaluate, score, and offer feedback.