Lighthouse Data Access Project
Shining the Light on Student Success
Durham Tech is one of four community colleges selected to participate in the Digital Holistic Student Supports infrastructure project. Durham Tech is partnering with Achieving the Dream (ATD) and technology developers DataKind to codesign and implement a Unified Digital Transformation System (UDTS) that will strengthen how we support students in their journey toward their academic and professional goals. Social policy researchers MDRC will provide additional evaluation support. With this collaboration, we hope that Durham Tech and our partner Lighthouse implementation colleges may become models for other community colleges developing data systems to promote innovation and student success.
Why It's Important
The Lighthouse Data Access Project will enable us to support student success by connecting disparate data systems, empowering employees with clear, accessible data, and ensuring evidence-based decision-making on existing and future strategies. By understanding the story our data tells, we foster a culture of continuous improvement and contribute to economic mobility in our community.
- What is a Unified Data Transformation System (UDTS)?
A UDTS will allow the College to retrieve and analyze data from Colleague, Canvas, and Element 451 in one system. In addition to dashboards showing key student success outcomes, the platform employs a natural language interface that allows users to pose questions that support and advance their work to help students progress and successfully complete credentials.
- What is a Codesign Process?
Over a two-year grant period (2026–2027), Durham Tech will be working with our partners to codesign and test the UDTS. We’ll be calling upon employees from all areas of the College to identify student success needs, strengthen and systematize data use and governance, provide product testing, and integrate the new system into student support workflows.
- How Will Durham Tech Use This System?
Here are some potential uses of the Lighthouse Data Access Project to support our students’ successful enrollment, persistence, and completion of their goals here at Durham Tech.
- A Program Director might query this system to compare course success rates in synchronous online, asynchronous online, and seated sections of a course to inform scheduling.
- An Academic Advisor might use the system to determine completion rates for students who fulfill math requirements in their first semester versus those who take them in later semesters.
- A Student Support Specialist might learn about how use of student supports, such as visits to the Center for Academic Excellence, correlates with student persistence.
- A Dean seeking to identify ways to improve enrollment in a pathway might use the system to determine characteristics of students who are and who are not currently enrolling in the pathway.
Timeline
