Page 30 - Campus Technology, October/November 2018

DEEPER ENGAGEMENT
For students to succeed, they not only need the right supports, but also must be fully engaged in their education.
“Engagement is about more than just attending classes and turning in assignments,” Rajecki said. “We have seen that institutions offering additional services to keep students engaged have higher retention and graduation rates. The more affinity that students have for the institution, and the greater their feeling of belonging, the higher their rate of success.”
Advanced analytics can help colleges and universities identify the student engagement and success factors that are unique to their institution. For instance, Valdosta State University in Georgia worked with Oracle to uncover key trends and determine which metrics play a significant role in retention and completion.
By combining and analyzing data from multiple sources, including student surveys and ID card usage, Valdosta State determined that students who eat breakfast on campus have a 10 percent higher retention rate, which led administrators to promote on-campus eateries. With the help of this simple change, the university increased student retention by more than 2 percent in one year.
In addition, Valdosta State discovered that freshmen who work on campus have a much higher retention rate than the general freshman population (85 percent vs. 55 percent). Equipped with this information, the university made a $200,000 investment in student jobs on campus, which is expected to save $2 million in student retention costs over four years.
POWERFUL INSIGHT
Finances are another common reason why students drop out of college: Many students simply can’t afford the courses they need to complete their degree program. Having access to sound financial information is critical — and Oracle Student
Cloud includes a Student Financial Planning component that helps students stay on track with their finances.
At the institutional level, when Student Cloud is integrated with Oracle’s HCM and ERP solutions, campus administrators have access to all of the information they need to make better decisions and manage the cost of an education, Rajecki pointed out.
“Having a fully integrated solution in a single cloud environment helps campus leaders make timely decisions based on real-time data, giving them much more control over institutional finances,” he said. Through data visualization dashboards, administrators can see how factors such as student and course enrollment, faculty workloads and the resource requirements of classrooms affect their budgets.
With adaptive, cloud-based intelligence at their fingertips, higher education leaders can glean powerful insights, Rajecki concluded — enabling them to support student success more effectively.
says Miller. “Colleges and universities need a flexible system to support and manage those use cases appropriately.”
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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE
For more information, please visit: Oracle.com/higher-education