The Problem
The Fox School of Business at Temple University is extending the traditional model of how student progress is measured and how it is used. Fox’s Christine Kiely, Associate Vice Dean, envisioned a tool that went beyond the typical A-B-C grading of academic courses. Christine conceptualized a system that would measure characteristics and traits critical to the student’s ultimate success in business – things like business acumen, presentation skills, persuasion and dozens of others. This system would transcend individual course knowledge and do so for the student’s entire academic experience within the MBA program. The system would become known as RoadMap™.
Cliff Tironi, Fox’s manager of performance analytics, built a manual prototype of the system and spent several semesters fine tuning the process. Soon, Fox was ready to engage an application development partner with expertise in data integration to build RoadMap™ using a technology that provided scalability and proven stability. For help, they contacted Microsoft’s education division. Microsoft recommended Teksouth.
The Approach
Teksouth spent time with Fox representatives to fully understand the function of RoadMap™. The data architecture would need to provide a high degree of flexibility in how the competencies, graded deliverables and other data are related. The system would automatically consume data from the learning management system used at Fox, Blackboard. This data would include feedback from peers, faculty and class visitors from industry. The system was built using an agile development methodology so that Fox could test progress frequently and make adjustments along the way.
The Result
The development effort resulted in a web-based personal and professional development platform for assessing student performance. Microsoft’s Power BI provides the visualization of data analytics which provides students, their counselors and administrative leadership the feedback needed to guide the student’s developmental path. Microsoft’s SQL Server platform and Analysis Services provide the scalable, stable back-end technology required to support the RoadMap™ system.
Soon after implementation, Fox contracted with Teksouth to implement the RoadMap™ platform at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. That implementation extends RoadMap’s™ integration to Moodle, another very popular learning management system.
Primary Benefits
- Students follow progress toward developing competencies needed for post-graduation successes
- Counselors gain a better view of developmental needs
- Administrators can aggregate data across courses, programs and departments, making RoadMap™ an invaluable tool for curriculum management and assurance of learning
- Access to feedback 24 / 7
- Proven integration with the most popular learning management systems
Read more on the Fox School of Business website.
