Data Drive Decision Making in a now normal World

Joseph Cassidy, MBA, EdD, Assistant Vice President, Economic Development, Dean, Continuing Education and Public Services, and Steven Wightkin, Chief Customer Officer, Datatelligent

Higher education institutions face numerous challenges in the post-Covid ‘now normal’ world. Student debt is skyrocketing, and traditional degree programs lack flexibility, making consumers question the return on investment. Meanwhile, the pipeline of traditional college-age students is declining. Continuing education (CE) units are positioned to help colleges and universities stay relevant. However, traditional ERP and CRM technology can leave CE units in the dark.

Many CE units are forced to seek out separate software solutions due to a lack of prioritization, institutional IT bandwidth, or system agility. CE courses and programs vary from short lectures to several weeks to a full year or more and have varied price points and delivery models to meet student, employee, and employer needs. This broader student base of non-traditional CE students is too nuanced and varied to fit well within a one-sizefits- all model. This is the case for CE at the College of DuPage (COD), located just west of Chicago in suburban Glen Ellyn, IL.

COD CE found itself challenged to access student data and inquiries to best respond to regional needs. With the help of local startup data analytics firm Datatelligent, COD CE is changing this reality. During the pandemic, Datatelligent conducted a classic entrepreneurial pivot, shifting its focus from healthcare to education and non-profits. Working out of the regional business incubator known as Innovation DuPage, Datatelligent applied decades of experience within the increasingly data-driven healthcare field to solve educational institutional needs. For COD CE, Datatelligent developed an interactive, user-friendly enrollment dashboard solution that allows all users to access timely, accurate data. COD CE staff can identify enrollment trends, and track the performance of marketing materials to improve continuing education recruitment and retention efforts.

The COD CE team realized they lacked access to the key data needed to make informed enrollment and marketing decisions. They had a cumbersome legacy system that did not easily allow for a comparison between current and past enrollment data. They needed assistance in integrating the information into a platform that was both user-friendly and self-service. With a small internal enrollment management team, they needed to bring on a partner with deep data analytics expertise and a strong familiarity with higher education.

Our Continued Collaboration Has Enabled Us To Be More Intentional In Our Marketing Efforts Through A Heightened Understanding Of Student Learning Pathways

Datatelligent's skilled team of data analysts quickly got to work, assessing COD CE's data landscape and its requirements. COD CE's legacy system was difficult to use and featured static reports that were laborious to compile and review. They needed a system that would connect staff with timely, accurate data, allowing them to quickly identify opportunities for improving the student experience and moving from a primarily manual reporting system to something streamlined and integrated.

Datatelligent's solution began with integrating data sources related to enrollment into a highly visual data dashboard. The College of DuPage team now had access to over 10 years' worth of enrollment data to identify trends and develop strategies to support program growth into the future. The enrollment dashboard features historical and current data migrated into one easy-to-access view. The information can be explored by term, by program unit down to the course level, as well as by student ethnicity, gender, and age. There's even a map feature that displays historical enrollment counts by Illinois zip code and city/town, providing administrators with a geographic viewpoint of growth and contraction.

Additionally, COD CE staff have access to a real-time continuing education enrollment report that has been designed to provide staff with accurate, timely enrollment data within the college’s existing systems. The Tableau-powered dashboard features comprehensive enrollment data organized by program offerings, such as Adult Education, Youth Academy, Business Solutions, Homeland Security Training, and Lifelong Learning. The dashboard allows staff to drill down into comparative details related to year-over-year comparisons. They can also compare enrollment data by individual courses and identify which courses are meeting goals, exceeding expectations, or underperforming. They now have the key analytics at hand to make data-driven decisions.

Joseph Cassidy, Assistant Vice President of Economic Development and Dean of Continuing Education and Public Services at College of DuPage, praised Datatelligent, saying, "Datatelligent is a proven, trusted partner, and their expertise has provided our team with access to the essential data we need to reach and exceed our growth and service goals. Our continued collaboration has enabled us to be more intentional in our marketing efforts through a heightened understanding of student learning pathways.” Datatelligent has helped COD CE better understand student matriculation from CE into degree programs, which has resulted in over 74,000 students and 371,000 credits matriculated in just over 13 years. On average, this translates to over $4 million in matriculated student tuition per year. CE is now working with Datatelligent to create student archetypes to better understand student learning pathways and provide more intentional institutional support to promote student continuation. With the decline in traditional college-age students and increased competition between colleges and universities, the role of CE to bolster enrollment has never been more important.

The work at the College of DuPage Continuing Education and its partnership with Datatelligent is a testament to the power of data-driven decision-making in higher education. COD CE and other institutions working with Datatelligent have a major advantage, using data to inform growth and student service. While the pandemic negatively impacted COD CE enrollment, it is returning quickly to pre-pandemic levels and is expected to hit 30,000 per year shortly. To learn more about the work at the College of DuPage Continuing Education, contact Joe Cassidy at cassidyj1180@cod.edu. To learn more about the work Datatelligent is doing with dozens of colleges and universities, contact Steve Wightkin at swightkin@datatelligent.ai.