In its first term, Ivy Tech college’s Project Early Success program had decreased the number of D’s and F’s on student report cards by 3.3 percent — that’s 3,000 students who were given another chance to graduate. These positive results and continued commitment to student success are why Brendan Aldrich (pictured), chief data officer of Ivy Tech Community College, was the recipient of this year’s Pentaho Excellence Award in social impact for using data to combat student dropout rates.

The Project Early Success program analyzes student behavioral data to identify patterns that may point to early dropouts or low grades and gives Ivy Tech staff the opportunity to reach out and engage with those students to improve their standing and help get them back on track.

“It’s not just their attendance, it’s not just previous performance in similar classes, but it’s really finding those data elements that relate to behaviors of the students that we believe are going to put them on a less successful track,” Aldrich said.

Aldrich spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the PentahoWorld event in Orlando, Florida. They discussed Ivy Tech’s implementation of its data-driven initiatives and how its data-democracy approach has been key in the success of both staff and students working in the program. (* Disclosure below.)

Data democratization for maximum progress

Ivy Tech works with thousands of students and hundreds of staff and faculty members. In order for its campus-wide initiatives to work, Aldrich and his team had to create an accessible resource that gave teachers the information and flexibility needed to work with students on an individual level.

“We wanted to make sure that our employees had access, that the data was intuitive, that it was relevant to their responsibilities, and that it was interactive,” Aldrich said. The repository had to be adaptable, so as the needs and challenges of staff evolved, they could continue to use data to answer questions without having to go back to a central information technology team.

While Aldrich’s role as CDO is somewhat rare in higher education, Ivy Tech’s success could make it an industry trendsetter. Not only have students benefitted greatly from Project Early Success, but the school has also seen a positive return by way of state performance funding dictated by graduation rates.

Ivy Tech’s latest rollout is Project Student Success, a program designed to continue student engagement over the entire course of the term to ensure they reach their educational goals. Aldrich is emphatic that schools looking to follow in Ivy Tech’s footsteps start with data democratization.

“If you can make the right data available to the people who are ready to use it, that’s a transformational opportunity,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of PentahoWorld. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for PentahoWorld. Neither Hitachi Vantara, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE