UB Tech 2014 Through the Looking Glass of Big Data Phil Ice, Ed.D. VP, Research and Development American Public University System

=loss annually in state and federal funds for student attrition $4.1 Billion = average % attrition rate for a 4 year degree at Pubic Universities 57% = average spend for a first year student by Public Universities $17K = value of retaining just 30 students $500K

32% of all college students are now taking at least 1 online course 6.7 million enrollments

Problems  Online failure / withdraw rates are up to 17 times higher than face to face  Good theoretical models but little hard data  Deluge of data – 8 data bases and 3 LMS’s per campus on average  Education wants to reinvent the wheel  Lack of stakeholder buy-in / institutional paralysis

Where are we headed? Business Models Provide Guidance

Connections All analyses and stakeholders are interrelated

Levels of Analysis Start Simple and Build

Make Data Consumable Visualize Utilize Measure Share Iterate

Visualize Interaction: Heat map Where are students clicking on page

Visualize Interaction: Overlays See the number of clicks on each element of your page.