Leveraging the Learning Management System for Student Success Ned Donnelly University of Cincinnati

Types of support Generalized Targeted Broadly scattered to every student whether requested or not (Blackboard) Targeted Specified students - instructor, advisor, tutor (Starfish Connect & Early Alert) Two types of support – general and targeted – Bb example of general, Starfish (Bb plug in) example of targeted/referred.

Blackboard Organizations A daily process enrolls students in three organizations according to: Student’s primary UC college Student’s primary academic program Student’s advisor(s) Starting with Generalized support. We’re a Bb campus our IT team wrote queries on our SIS data warehouse that populate Bb orgs daily as students change colleges, majors, advisors

Primary College Example: primary college

Student’s Academic Program Example : academic program (college/degree/academic area (major)

Associated Advisor Example: associated advisor

Advisor Organizations Used for Generalized Support Announcements Email Posted handouts Calendar of Events Sub groups Advisor use of Bb orgs – announcements, email, handouts, calendar

Student View Example student view of an Advisor-level Bb org

Self-Service Online Appointment Scheduling Now Targeted support. Disclaimer - this is not a commercial for starfish but principles can be generalized

The CENTSS audit web of services - our Big idea applied to acad advising, tutoring and faculty-student communication http://centss.org/

Why? Academic plan and semester conversion

“Web-based Scheduling Software” = 24,000,000 Bing results “Web-based Scheduling Software” = 24,000,000 Bing results. We considered doing this in-house but there were enough vendors in the marketplace. We had specific needs around integrating with existing systems and customization so we went with starfish.

Needed to meet the needs of decentralized advising

Our goal was a onestop, easy source for students to know the network of services assigned to them

Networks talk - Data - Blackboard feeds starfish, starfish feeds outlook

Multiple service providers sharing their time with students - i. e Multiple service providers sharing their time with students - i.e. advisors, tutors per student; tudent activity stored in the system accessible to the network

Drill down to student view of advisor calendar – unavailable has already been taken by another student or advisor busy time elsewhere. Scheduled appts appear

Advisor multiple calendars talk - note student appt at 8:00, busy time at 9:00, available in between for 8:00-5:00 appointments

Early Alert Pilot Autumn 2011 2,621 flags in 311 sections using the LMS (Bb) Flagged students went to 28% more “academic help” appointments The DFW rate dropped 6% to 25.6% Used for Specified Support Early Alert Pilot in the Autumn 2011 term 2,621 flags were raised for low grade or attendance concerns, across 311 different course sections Flagged students went to 28% more “academic help” appointments, relative to their non-flagged counterparts in the same courses The DFW rate dropped to 25.6% in Autumn 2011 in the course sections where students were flagged – a 6% drop relative to Autumn 2009 / 2010

Flagged students were more likely to make appointments

Average number of appointments per student University of Cincinnati, Autumn 2011 term

Percentage of students receiving a D, F, or W in course sections flagged

I was able to make an appointment at 3:30 AM. Awesome! Convenient! more convenient I was able to make an appointment at 3:30 AM. Awesome! I did not have to call the office. I didn’t have to call I like it much more than having to call I often put off scheduling advisor appointments; but with starfish I found it easy I can use it at any time of the day fast and easy. Student quotes I know what time is available to set an appointment. It made it easy

you can see appointments and know right away if a time slot is taken or not. I could visually see advisor’s schedule I liked how I could specify what it is that I needed to see her about so that when I got to the meeting, she had a lot of the information ready to go which made the meeting go much more quickly and smoothly. Overall I enjoy using it. optimize my appointment time

UC’s Documentation: http://www.uc.edu/advising Time is of the essence UC’s Documentation: http://www.uc.edu/advising