Data & Analytics

Utah Universities Partner on Student Success Project

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 10/10/16

Two sizable Utah universities are teaming to work together on student success initiatives. Both Utah State University and the University of Utah have signed with Civitas Learning to use its software analytics applications for student success and retention, documenting teaching and learning and institutional decision-making. They're expected to share their findings with each other to better serve students at both institutions.

Civitas Learning is a data analytics platform that pinpoints the indicators tied to student success. Both universities have provided the company with historic data and will continue to feed data into the system under the new agreement. Civitas' platform, Illume, will be put to work on analyzing trends and patterns for students' college careers and help identify which approaches are turning out to be most effective for different types of students in order to refine advising and make better program decisions. System-wide implementation for both universities is expected to be in place by next year.

"Enhanced advising and student support at the University of Utah begins with our ability to analyze data in a timely way and signal to administrators and faculty when students need help," said Martha Bradley-Evans, senior associate vice president of academic affairs at U Utah, in a prepared statement. "Improving success among students in Utah means empowering advisors and faculty to have the right conversation at the right time so that a student can take the right action." That institution has an enrollment of about 31,515.

Added Noelle Cockett, executive vice president and provost of Utah State, "Understanding the highly detailed trends and patterns of an individual's college career will allow us to make informed decisions on how to best help each student." Utah State's enrollment is about 28,600.

Civitas' tools have been used by 285 colleges, universities and systems, the company claims on its website, including the University of Central Florida, the University of Washington, the University of Texas at Austin and Rio Salado College in Arizona.