Ellucian, Burning Glass Institute Partner on Student Outcomes Data Analysis Project

Ed tech company Ellucian is collaborating with the Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit specializing in labor market analysis, to uncover new insights on what makes students successful. The goal: to identify ways to improve student retention, graduation rates and employability for students of all backgrounds, as well as optimize the use of institutional resources, according to a news announcement.

Together with BGI's data scientists, Ellucian will analyze data from its higher education customers (who opt in to the research). Researchers hope the work will help them better understand the alignment between students' course of study and where opportunity lies, and factors that have the greatest impact on a students' post-graduation trajectories. All research findings will be shared with the higher education community.

Another key long-term objective is "to inform new key performance indicators and dashboards that would help Ellucian customers track their progress against student success factors identified by the research," the company noted.

"Data has the power to transform student success and we look forward to working with the Burning Glass Institute to gain valuable insights that will guide how our solutions support the future of higher education," said Laura Ipsen, president and CEO of Ellucian, in a statement. "BGI is uniquely positioned at the intersection of learning and work and their expertise and analysis will equip our customers to meet the needs of tomorrow's workforce. Working with BGI would enable us to create pathways to ensure students graduate with employability opportunities."

"Ellucian serves millions of learners each year at over 2,700 institutions across the student lifecycle," commented Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute. "We are looking forward to collaborating closely with Ellucian for unprecedented insight on the factors that drive student outcomes. Ultimately, we believe that the research that he Burning Glass Institute and Ellucian will do together can help colleges and universities deliver a more effective academic experience and help enable better results for their students over the arc of their careers."

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

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