A pilot project at Northumbria University has highlighted the value of analytics and a digital dashboard in supporting students’ mental health, according to Jisc.
The membership organisation for technology in higher education has just published an evaluation report of the project, which ran from 2019-22.
It found that the project showed it is possible predict a student’s wellbeing with significant accuracy and that mental health analytics identifies additional students who need support compared to educational analytics.
The project included the collection of relevant data, development of predictive models and an integrated service dashboard using wellbeing indicators validated by a rapid evidence assessment.
Picture of wellbeing
The report says the dashboard made it possible for staff to form a picture of student wellbeing by centralising information that was previously in siloes, some of which they would not usually have had access to. This fed into decisions on which students needed offers of support.
Actions included tailored messages to students signposting the help and guidance available from the university.
This process was not fully automated, with staff in the counselling and mental health team continuing to make professionally informed decisions. The team found that these ‘nudges’ resulted in a 50% increase in their caseload, indicating there were students who may not previously have known that help was available.
Other key findings from the evaluation were that: the data used must be clean, accurate and available centrally; analytics does not remove the need for expert decision making, but can improve its effectiveness; and more work is needed to move from a project to a deliverable service.
Some problems emerged with the data as the project went on, but the report says this not a criticism of the project but an indication that a continuous effort needs to be made on data governance.
Value of data
Professor Edward Peck, Nottingham Trent University vice chancellor and higher education student support champion, commented: “The mental health analytics pilot project shows just how valuable data is in supporting students at every step of their higher education journey. Collaboration is key to building that data capability and designing systems that help students to thrive at university and college.”
Jim Keane, senior analytics consultant and author of the report said: “Commitment to digital transformation and the ability to bring together data from multiple services was critical to Northumbria University’s success.
“We hope the benefits of Jisc’s learning analytics evidenced through this pilot project motivates other organisations to progress their wellbeing analytics journey, making the most of their data to support the most vulnerable students.”
