nercomp 2008 enhancing retention: a tool for communication between faculty and advisors

Copyright Northeastern University, 2008. Northeastern University Confidential

NERCOMP 2008

Enhancing Retention: A Tool for Communication between Faculty and Advisors

Kostia Bergman

Vanessa Ritz


Introductions

Kostia Bergman

Associate Professor

Biology – College of Arts and Sciences

Northeastern University

[email protected]

Vanessa Ritz

Lead – Customer Relationship Management

Information Services

Northeastern University

[email protected]


About Northeastern University

Founded in 1898 in Boston

5th largest private university in the United States

Northeastern is renowned for:

Experiential Learning (#1 in Coop per US News and World Report)

Interdisciplinary Research (over $70 million sponsored annually)

Urban Engagement in the heart of Boston


Project Background

Northeastern lacked the capacity to effectively identify and intervene with students who showed signs of poor academic performance, attendance, or other issues in a timely, consistent manner across campus

Every percentage point increase in the rate of graduation is worth $1 million to the University

A solution was needed to help identify and intervene with students who matriculate and then find themselves unable to adjust to the academic rigors of higher education


Project Background, cont’d

The College of Engineering (COE) developed a system in 2001 to provide a safety net for freshman engineering students

Technical and security issues made scaling this to a university-wide solution impractical if not impossible

A basic pilot application was put in place for Fall 2005 across all colleges for select freshmen-level courses

Faculty were asked to use both the university-wide (feature poor) and engineering applications (feature rich) for students

The university chose to deploy a new, expanded application for the Fall 2007 term to cover all undergraduate students

Received a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation

Salesforce.com was chosen as the application platform


Project Background, cont’d

Salesforce.com provided the platform to meet many of the critical success factors as defined by a user task force made up of faculty, advisors, and administrators

Web-based, user-friendly tool that is highly customizable

Easily integrated to provide visibility to near real-time data updates

Ability to track and view student interactions

Allow for the ability to increase communication between faculty and advisors

Automatic email based on database triggers, customizable by college

Easy-to-use, real-time reporting


Project Approach

Project coordinated by an Information Services resource

User task force created from a key user base of faculty, advisors, and administrators that met regularly to review deliverables and development efforts

Followed methodology to allow for iterative development


What is FACT?

“Faculty/Advisor Communication Tool”

Name selected to demonstrate expanded functionality

Replaced/expanded on former “Early Warning” systems

Includes progress reports for select students as well as non-participation concerns in the beginning of each term

Incorporates two-way communication between faculty and advisors

Consists of two applications:

Faculty J2EE Web Application for submission of cases

Salesforce.com front-end for advisors and administrators


Demonstration

Custom faculty application

Web-based

Accessed through the Northeastern Faculty Portal

Accesses Salesforce.com data via the API (only references data from Salesforce.com)

Salesforce.com for advisors

Web-based

Requires license and Northeastern credentials (authenticated through Northeastern LDAP)

www.salesforce.com/login


Analysis

We are currently in the second active term using FACT across the university

We had very strong compliance in the first term among courses that were a part of the former early warning program

Compliance constitutes submitting cases, or stating that no cases exist for a course

Overall compliance was not as strong due to a variety of factors – more senior-level courses, decreased “marketing” efforts, resistant faculty


Analysis, cont’d


Next Steps

Feature enhancements planned for each term

Spring 2008 included new functionality for first month and mid-semester reporting for athletics

Future versions may include special reporting for students on scholarship and academic probation

Formation of a steering committee

Regular meetings to be scheduled around releases made up of members from the original user task force and other champions

New “marketing campaign” targeting both faculty and advisors with the benefits of the tool


Q & A

nercomp 2008 enhancing retention: a tool for communication between faculty and advisors

Documents