The Institute for Design and Innovation recently unveiled some of the cutting edge work being done at UNM to increase student success in the long run.
These developments come in the form of analytic tools, developed by IDI, working in conjunction with compiled data to present higher education outcomes.
The tools have various functions across higher education and are meant for use by students, faculty, advisers, administrators and decision makers in NM.
Barbara Damron, New Mexico Secretary of Higher Education, praised the software’s potential to improve higher education in the state.
The work being done by IDI is integral, she said, as higher education across the nation has become much more centered on looking at performance outcomes that are data-driven.
“We know if we can get more students into higher education graduated, they’ll be healthier, we can get them out of poverty, they will grow our economic development here in the state. So in my opinion, this is very, very pivotal,” Damron said.
Greg Heileman, associate provost, said the goal of IDI, which was created last November by Heileman and Provost Chaouki Abdallah, was to develop software that anyone in the state can use and eventually open-source that software so other institutions can use it as well.
“It started out as a simple side project,” Abdallah said. “Now it’s one of the most important things we do in the academic affairs.”
One of the tools, already being used by students and advisors, is a degree-mapping program, Heileman said. The site, available at http://degrees.unm.edu, uses data to give students an idea of what will work best for their curriculum.
“We have data about the courses you’ve taken and the degree you’re trying to earn, we can match those two up and figure out whether you’re on track and earlier advise students if they’re getting off track,” he said.
The degree roadmaps site has received over two million hits in the last two years, Abdallah said, being accessed by current and prospective students from all over the world
Last year UNM was given money from the state to adapt this application to other universities and colleges in the state, he said. Currently there are seven NM institutions that IDI will be delivering the software to in August 2017.
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“To be able to share the data and make sure students can progress across institutions,” Abdallah said, “it’s making UNM much more visible to people when they’re looking at universities.”
According to a UNM Newsroom press release, thanks to the support of the analytic tools and IDI, the university is already seeing benefits from these student success efforts.
This includes more than a 7 percent increase in 6-year graduation rates at UNM, as well as all-time records in 4-year graduation rates each of the past two years, according to the press release.
Damron said IDI, partially supported by a Research and Public Service Project, is working with the Higher Education Department to support her big three initiatives to reform higher education.
Those initiatives include common course numbering and alignment of lower division outcomes, developing meta-majors and transfer modules in addition to reforming the general education core curriculum.
“As we’re moving statewide to make sure we have these initiatives that are going to make sure our students graduate on time, they graduate with the courses they need, they are ready to hit the workforce running,” she said. “This is probably the single most important aspect to what is going to help students here in this state.”
To that end, the majority of analytic tools designed by IDI are not meant for the students but for academic affairs, the administration and decision makers in NM “to be able to examine our data about student success, faculty success, about financial challenges of the university and elsewhere,” he said,“and to try to present it in a visual analytics way so that the decision makers can make informed decisions.”
Using the software in conjunction with the student data available, IDI can present graphs as well as predict patterns and outcomes for the future, Abdallah said. This allows the administration to target difficulties in the curriculum and further invest resources to address those difficulties and increase students success overall.
The tools make it easy to look at the curriculum and see how prerequisites and courses connect to each other and, through that, make sure the curriculum flow is coherent, he said.
According to the UNM press release, all the tools are run using a Javascript dashboard framework, developed by IDI.
“It’s completely homegrown,” Abdallah said.
UNM is offering the software to other institutions for a fraction of what companies charge for the same product, he said.
“No university had this internally, so they’re buying this software from different commercial providers,” Abdallah said. UNM will sell the full analytic toolset for around $25000, while most companies charge $150000 for just a portion.
Right now, the aim is to improve student success, but Abdallah said he hopes one day to make a business out of selling the software and bring some more income to the university.
“Its already shown a lot of benefits in terms of what we can do in trying to figure out where the difficulties are in both the curriculum and what the students are doing,” he said.
Matthew Reisen is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. Contact him at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter
@dailylobo.
