News Story

The RETAIN project has started

Chris Valentine, Thursday 3 Mar 2011

The JISC funded RETAIN project has started on the 1st March. This 18 month project aims to extend the Open University’s existing Business Intelligence systems, with a particular focus on improving student retention. RETAIN will make it possible to integrate additional data sources, such as data from VLE’s, with existing statistical methods and to further extend the functionality by using predictive modelling to identify students who are at risk of non-completion of their courses. This will allow for better targeted interventions towards these students. A demonstrator will be developed, for visualising retention data that allows viewing of both aggregated and individual student data on selected dimensions. This will be usable by tutors and programme managers for determining strategy in both the short-term and long-term, on individual, course and faculty levels. The developed tools and methods will be trialled with a view to longer term uptake and further extensions to Business Intelligence functionality. The predicted benefits are improved retention and progression, leading to a financial cost savings for the OU and a better student experience.