A Globe and Mail article looks at how Big Data might help university students graduate
Last Friday's edition of The Globe and Mail newspaper included a story on聽how predictive聽analytics might help decrease university drop-out rates. Several Data Science companies, including聽聽IBM鈥檚 Watson Analytics and Microsoft, are offering universities their expertise聽on identifying students at risk of dropping out. Of course, having low marks is a good predictor, but it is not the only one. Women, for example, are less likely than men to leave university before finishing their studies, but聽when they do, their marks are usually quite聽good. So why are they dropping out? The University of British Colombia is one university that has initiated a pilot porgram whose aim is find聽the answers to such questions. They are looking at a wealth of聽historical data, including involvement in extra-curricular activities and post-graduation employment, to find meaningful patterns. This is very much a work in progress, and a long-term project. You can read more about the issue, including the high cost of not finding a solution, in the Globe's .