All education sites rely on and accumulate masses of data, from student demographics, to grades, to class numbers, and facilities scheduling. The old-fashioned way was keeping manual records with the aid of spreadsheets and reams of paperwork, but when it comes to today’s “big data”, digital data analytics and all its associated technology has come to the fore. Within a school or college, how can all this data be put to good use? Swathes of data, if gathered and analysed correctly, can be transformative for an educational institution, but many educational sites are not thinking far enough ahead when it comes to their data analytics. How can school data be used effectively to predict, inform, and shape the future of both students and provider?
Here are five strategies to revolutionize your in-house data analytics in education:
- Student data - demographics: There’s a wealth of data to be collected on the demographics of your students. These include age, gender, ethnicity, social background, class, and location. Data can also be gathered on whether students are full or part-time, whether they take classes or campus or online, or a hybrid of both. “Being able to closely analyze your student data can help an establishment track patterns and make predictions and plans for the future,” according to Anthony Grey-Fellowes, business writer at Elite assignment help and UK Writings review. “Student data is the basis for all your analytics and with precise statistics you’ll be able to back up every forward decision made regarding enrollment trends and marketing to areas where few students enroll from.”
- Student data – retention and success prediction: Data analytics takes things even further. A facility will be able to retain students by pinpointing any challenges they may have and identifying their strengths and weaknesses. By examining a student’s prior academic success, you’ll be able to establish which modules of a course they will thrive in and which students you may see dropping out. Additional support can therefore be given to weaker areas of a student's academic life and failed classes predicted and prevented by the sharing of data between professors and pastoral staff. “With the right data, an alert system can be put in place,” according to Nellie Chung, a technical writer at Revieweal and UK Services reviews, “so intervention can be swift and a workable solution found.”
- Course data: This data will include things like headcounts in enrollment, the rates of completion for certain modules or sections of a course, the grades achieved in each module, and how grades vary from semester to semester. With data analytics tools being able to collect, organize, and store information, all these highly useful numbers will be easy to access and to incorporate into future planning of all your courses.
- Tutor and instructor data: There are various demographic factors to collect and to assess when it comes to your school’s tutors, including age, gender, and ethnicity - plus productivity and salary information. All this data will help an institution make informed decisions on future hires and salary boundaries.
- Facilities data: This type of data is crucial. It will include statistics on how classrooms are used and when, the allocation of on-site resources and how effective current timetables and rotas are. Physical space and educational equipment costs money, so data analytics will keep you ahead of the curve. Energy consumption is also a considerable factor and can be assessed and monitored by using the data available. With data analytics, rifling through old forms and folders to find out information about how classrooms and resources are managed becomes a thing of the past.
These are five key areas where data analytics can make a real difference to your educational institution, and by effectively strategizing each of these elements, you’ll be able to set goals and reach them by collecting large amounts of pertinent information that is easily accessible, and then creating best practices and outcomes for the future of your institution.
Rebecca Leigh is a writer on marketing strategy for Custom essay and Big Assignments. She contributes to tech and marketing conferences, is a business consultant, and writes articles for online magazines and blogs like the Do my assignment service.