Lone Star College System
By the year 2015 Lone Star College System (LSCS) is projected to grow it's current enrollment of 45,000 to more than 60,000 students across it's 5 colleges. Lone Star's leadership recognized that to thrive in an environment with such unprecedented growth, it would require decision making informed by data.
ASR Analytics worked with LSCS' newly formed Department of Business Intelligence to develop a framework for evidence-based decision making.
Developing a Culture of Evidence Using Achieving the Dream
Having recognized the need for change in it’s decision making culture, Lone Star College System (LSCS) knew that it needed a new suite of decisions support tools.
LSCS created a department to manage system wide ‘business intelligence.’ At the same time, LSCS was selected to participate in the Achieving the Dream initiative, a program that helps community colleges to use data to improve student success. Marian Burkhart, LSCS’s newly appointed Director of Business Intelligence decided that the Achieving the Dream (AtD) program made a good impetus for changing the System’s decision making culture.
“Transforming an institution from anecdotal decision-making to one which utilizes a culture of evidence is no easy task, especially within an organization as large as ours. I viewed AtD as an opportunity to achieve two overriding goals…implement a suite of business intelligence products on a district-wide scale and satisfy the data and reporting needs of the initiative itself,” said Burkhart.
With a small, but ‘wickedly-smart’ staff, Burkhart said proudly, the Business Intelligence Department set out to accomplish several important goals, including:
- Extract the necessary data required by the Achieving the Dream initiative from the System’s student information system, Datatel Colleague.
- Deploy the SAS Enterprise Business Intelligence framework.
- Establish business intelligence best practices and development standards within the newly formed department.
To accomplish these goals, LSCS turned to ASR Analytics to get results quickly. Since Burkhart’s team was new to enterprise business intelligence and the Achieving the Dream initiative, ASR proposed a project plan that included a heavy mentoring component.
The project was divided into two parts with the LSCS team working on success and persistence rates of students enrolled in developmental coursework, while the ASR team built out the information architecture and determined the success and persistence rates of students in ‘gatekeeper’ courses.
Burkhart, on the mentoring experience:
We had twice-weekly teleconferences…on Mondays ASR consultants would introduce a new topic, demonstrate how to create deliverables using the appropriate tool, and discuss best practices, tips and tricks. On Thursdays, LSCS staff would demo what they developed and ask questions about anything confusing or unclear. Additionally, there were several weeks when ASR consultants worked one-on-one with my developers if they were stuck on a specific issue.
The experience was very similar to a distance learning class and wholly rewarding.
As a result of this unique partnership approach, Lone Star College System’s new Department of Business Intelligence was able to:
- Deliver a comprehensive and sustainable reporting regime for Achieving the Dream.
- Deploy enterprise business intelligence tools to decision makers across LSCS and it’s five colleges.
- Use Achieving the Dream data as a starting point for developing a true culture of evidence.
Learn more about ASR Analytics’ Achieving the Dream and Business Intelligence solutions for higher education.