{"id":49,"date":"2016-10-09T12:05:19","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T16:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/?p=49"},"modified":"2016-10-23T12:27:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T16:27:06","slug":"what-do-we-really-really-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"What do we really, really want?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Big data can benefit higher education.\u00a0 Community colleges need to use big data but, step one is to determine what is valued.\u00a0 Big data does not bring magic, but it can bring information together in a cohesive, interpretable format such as Perdue&#8217;s Signals, a predictive analytic model (2013).\u00a0 Community colleges should develop systems to such as Signals.\u00a0 Gathering data from many sources and analyzing trends.\u00a0 But is this what we want?<\/p>\n<p>A few weeks ago I ended up in a meeting during a company demonstration.\u00a0 This company uses big data to analyze scheduling patterns and trends.\u00a0 The goal is to use this data to increase student completion by achieving maximum space utilization and predict registration patterns.\u00a0 The product showed trends and patterns along with problem areas.\u00a0 The product is not as important as what the vendor said: \u201cAfter showing the patterns to the institution and documenting suggestions for improvement, most institutions institute 5-7% of the suggested improvements\u201d (Ad Astra, September 29, 2016).\u00a0 WHAT?\u00a0 Why would a college pay over $70,000 per year to analyze data and then not use the information?\u00a0 Do the colleges&#8217;, not value having enough sections of a course to meet demand?\u00a0 Other comments revealed that even the systems that are in place are only used at a fraction of their potential and analyzing patterns is not done.<\/p>\n<p>There is a great benefit in using big data to analyze trends, avoid missed opportunities for intervention, and create new ways to look at trends.\u00a0 By using substantial volume and variety of information, the veracity is increased.\u00a0 Volume and variety is important to community colleges so that they can confidently move away from the business as usual business plan and truly embrace change that can increase student success.\u00a0 Antidotal naysayers are abundant in higher education; data is protected, and the term academic freedom is thrown around like a lifeline, but this system is not evidence-led and does not result in successes.\u00a0 Let us use data to continually improve academia.\u00a0 Use the tools that are available to their full potential and examine the trends to drive improvement.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"shrinkToFit\" src=\"http:\/\/coryedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Gollum.jpg\" alt=\"http:\/\/coryedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Gollum.jpg\" width=\"1138\" height=\"475\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ad Astra. (2016, September 29). <em>Platinum analytics demonstration. <\/em>Conference Call.<\/p>\n<p>Educause (2013, July).\u00a0 Signals: Using Academic Analytics to Promote Student Success.\u00a0 Retrieved:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.educause.edu\/ero\/article\/signals-using-academic-analytics-promote-student-success<\/p>\n<p>Edwards, C. (2014, April 8). <em>Gollum<\/em> [Photograph; .JPG]. Retrieved from http:\/\/coryedwards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Gollum.jpg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big data can benefit higher education.\u00a0 Community colleges need to use big data but, step one is to determine what is valued.\u00a0 Big data does not bring magic, but it can bring information together in a cohesive, interpretable format such as Perdue&#8217;s Signals, a predictive analytic model (2013).\u00a0 Community colleges should develop systems to such<span class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/60"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}