Early warning software helps prevent university dropouts in UAE

Dubai: As student dropout rates become a growing concern in the UAE, universities are looking at whatever options available to stem the problem.

One of the solutions they are considering is a piece of software called Course Signals that is an early intervention system to identify at-risk students. The information is then used to create strategies to help these students.

The software was launched on Monday at an education technology conference by SunGard Higher Education and is based on a model developed by Dr John Campbell, associate vice-president of academic technologies, at Purdue University.

Because it is difficult to predict and identify at-risk students early enough, the software uses information already held by the university to determine if a student is at risk of dropping out.

Based on the data it gets, Course Signals displays a red, yellow or green signal to students and faculty. Red indicates a high likelihood of failing a course, yellow indicates a potential problem, and green indicates a likelihood of succeeding.

The American University of Sharjah (AUS) is among the first institutions to purchase the software at about $40 (Dh147) per student per year and is currently in the pilot phase of implementing it.

Priority

Other institutions in discussions to purchase the software are the Higher Colleges of Technology, University of Sharjah, Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, UAE University, Zayed University and Abu Dhabi University, SunGard Higher Education officials said.

“Student retention is something that we always concern ourselves with but it goes beyond software as it alone will not solve the retention problem,” said Jerald Cumbus, director of AUS’ academic achievement centre.

AUS has a retention rate of between 60 per cent to 70 per cent in any given year for a programme while other universities have much lower figures he said.

He said AUS had been evaluating various software for about four years looking to find one that was customisable to a Gulf region university. AUS will run a pilot of the software and plans to go full scale in a year-and-a-half.

As to why students are dropping out, the reasons are numerous. Experts such as Dr Warren Fox, executive director of higher education at KHDA, point out that it is mainly due to high school students’ lack of preparedness for university level education.