Industry News

EAB Acquires Rapid Insight for User-Friendly Analytics

• By Rhea Kelly
• 11/04/21

EAB, a provider of research, enterprise technology and data-enabled services for education institutions, has announced the acquisition of Rapid Insight, maker of data analytics tools designed for ease of use and efficiency. Rapid Insight's technology will be incorporated into EAB's Edify education data platform.

EAB launched Edify earlier this year to help higher education institutions bring together data from disparate campus systems. The addition of Rapid Insight will make it easier for administrators to analyze data across institutional siloes with no coding experience required, according to a news announcement.

"Edify organizes institutional data in a uniform format, eliminating the time-consuming task of checking and manipulating data sets manually. It also creates a central point of access to that data," the announcement explained. "Rapid Insight's intuitive drag-and-drop functionality removes technical barriers to using that data for decision-making, enabling stakeholders across campus to run analyses, report on outcomes, and share insights with executives."

The combined solution eliminates the time-consuming process of collecting and synthesizing data in multiple formats from multiple departments. For example, administrators in the Advancement office can access different academic and demographic data sets quickly and build models in real time, in order to analyze trends in giving behavior.

"The typical college or university collects and maintains a wealth of data that could be invaluable to their leadership team if only they didn't have to move mountains to get their hands on it," commented Rapid Insight President Michael Laracy, in a statement. "The work we are doing with EAB will give university leaders the tools they need to manage their institutions more effectively while reducing the burden on campus IT personnel."