The Lighthouse Data Access Project’s Why
Reaching Student Success Goals
Why do we need the Lighthouse Data Access Project, and how will it help us reach our student success goals?
A Unified Digital Transformation System (UDTS) like our developing Lighthouse Data Access Project is a powerful tool that can help us reach the ambitious goals of our 2026-2031 Strategic Plan: increased credential completion, higher transfer rates, stronger workforce-aligned pathways, and expanded ability to help Durham and Orange County residents achieve academic and professional goals.
Unifying data from Colleague, Element 451, and Canvas can help in the following ways:
- Provide a holistic view of the student journey so we can identify barriers to success
- Deliver consistent, trusted data for decision making
- Enable departments to collaborate with shared data that is widely accessible, rather than spending time reconciling inconsistent data
- Improve operational efficiency, such as by reducing some manual processes so our limited resources might be used more effectively
Data We Need
At a July Directors Meeting, campus leaders were asked, “What data is currently unavailable to us with our current tools?” Here are some of their answers:
List of students eligible for graduation who have not yet applied
Healthcare pre-admissions predictive analytics
List of students who haven’t been enrolled in a year
List of students who received financial aid last year but haven’t applied yet for this year
List of students who have and have not been advised
Impact of student services
Internal transfer (i.e., program to program, ESL to Beyond Basic ESL to English for Academic Purposes to Curriculum, Basic Skills to associate degrees, dual enrolled CCP pathway to associate degrees)
Work-based learning activity (i.e., partnerships, internships, and apprenticeships)
By connecting data from Canvas, Element 451, and Colleague, the Lighthouse Data Access Project can give employees access to data to answer questions that currently elude us.
What Are the Risks of Not Doing This?
MDRC, the social policy research firm partnering with Durham Tech to support its implementation of the Lighthouse Project, sent out a Data Perceptions Survey in April and followed up with focus group conversations this summer. They found that Durham Tech employees work in 15 or more distinct data platforms and experience significant challenges in using data effectively. Said one focus group participant,
If we just had better access to data . . . that would just really save us some time. And I think we could really spend more time looking at the output, looking at what's coming out, and thinking of ways, of how to improve things, which is what we're all good at.
The Future of Data Management
Industry is already using UDTS technology, and four-year universities are beginning to follow suit. But high costs mean this technology has to a large extent remained out of reach for community colleges. As part of Achieving the Dream’s Digital Holistic Student Support Grant, Durham Tech has the opportunity to be an early adopter, codesign the system to meet community college needs, and obtain a system at a lower entry cost.
Most Importantly, Our Students Are Depending on Us
State and national organizations measuring community college progress, grant funders, Durham and Orange County communities, and, most importantly, our own students all have high expectations for Durham Tech to deliver on promises of expanded opportunity and mobility. The Lighthouse Data Access Project is an additional infrastructure tool that will help us reach our goals.
What’s Happening in September
- Founding Partner Release: This month we are getting our first glimpse of the UDTS in its simplest form, the data tool with synthetic data.
- Data Governance Structure: Durham Tech has a new Data Governance Committee, chartered to develop “the standards, policies, and processes that keep institutional data accurate, consistent, trusted, and accessible.”
- Data Definitions for Metrics: For each our key performance indicators and the new Strategic Plan, we are developing common understanding and definitions.
Have questions about the Lighthouse Data Access Project? E-mail Susan Bowen or Lea Bingham.