Macon State College Selects Blackboard Analytics for Data-Driven Decision Making
Solution Deemed Critical to Improving Learning Outcomes
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Macon State College has chosen Blackboard Analytics™ to help it achieve the goals set in Complete College Georgia, the state's higher education completion plan, Blackboard Inc. announced today. Macon State is the fourth state institution in Georgia to turn to the company's suite of applications to help with this initiative.
Tasked by the University System of Georgia to increase student retention and faced with performance-based funding from the system office for the first time, college officials created a plan to become a "mission-driven" campus where decisions are driven by data. Officials determined that Blackboard Analytics would best enable the college to evaluate academic initiatives and measure progress toward institutional goals and benchmarks.
Macon State faculty use reports and dashboards from Blackboard Analytics, which unlocks data from their student information system, to track outcomes and validate the redesign objectives of core and remedial classes. The solution is enabling academic leaders to get a better handle on retention rates and put a plan in place to move forward. In addition, Macon State officials have used Blackboard Analytics to optimize course sections offered and to determine how best to allocate space in its two campuses.
"If you put information in the hands of faculty and they start to look at it, they come up with more creative solutions and they begin to own the problems and celebrate the successes," said Marti Venn, provost and vice president for academic affairs. "Faculty was able to change the way a remedial class is taught after data from Blackboard Analytics indicated success rates were not meeting expectations."
"Our department was able to confirm that success rates for an introductory level course increased after being redesigned," said Barry Monk, chair of mathematics at Macon State. "Before we adopted Blackboard Analytics, it drove us crazy that we couldn't use data to evaluate teaching methods because we knew it could be used. We finally have a tool to show us what's working and what needs improvement," added mathematics professor, John Trimboli.
The Blackboard Analytics suite of products unlocks data from the leading ERP systems and Blackboard Learn™, the company's flagship learning management system. The products provide higher education leaders across the institution on demand access to metrics and data for informed decision-making regarding enrollment management, academic affairs, finance, advancement, and more.
For more information about Blackboard Analytics, please visit http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Analytics/Overview.aspx.
About Blackboard Inc.
Blackboard Inc. is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day. Blackboard's solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security, and communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997, Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release. Actual results may differ materially as a result of various important factors. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company's views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so.
SOURCE Blackboard Inc.
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