Many have tried to apply machine learning and natural language models to try to categorize and analyze data on postsecondary training programs. Join us as we discuss how Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) have worked with these tools to standardize data on programs offered at member institutions across the country. Our goal is to make it easier for learners to find the right pathway to meaningful work by simplifying the options in front of them. Bring your questions and ideas as we explore this together.

Inspired by the feedback received from our Micro-credentials research presentation at last year’s CIRPA conference, we are excited to share this year’s top trends impacting higher education sector in Canada (with specific focus on growth sectors of the Alberta economy) with our border CIRPA community.

This presentation plans to cover key trends, each playing a significant role in shaping the future of education in the region and offering insights into the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Conestoga College’s coordinated approach to address potential survey fatigue involves a centralized annual student survey, stakeholder collaboration, and a targeted marketing campaign, “Conestoga Listens”. This presentation discusses the administration of the Annual Student Feedback Survey, the interactive HTML reporting for service areas (using R), and how “the feedback loop is closed” by providing infographics and key action items back to students. Our process demonstrates Conestoga College’s commitment to transparency, and showcases the value of students’ feedback – showing how their voices can create meaningful institutional change.

Enrollment forecasting is a foundational Data Analytics challenge for higher education institutions worldwide. Good forecasts enable accurate and reliable institutional budgets, efficient management of resources, and supports institutions’ Strategic Enrolment Management, Budget Analysis, and Resource Planning initiatives.

The number of international students across all post-secondary institutions has multiplied sixfold since 2000. This increase has given rise to several concerns, including the supply and affordability of housing and perceptions about recruiters taking advantage of international students. The federal government recently announced the implementation of an intake cap on international students by province. This paper will assess the feasibility of using the T2202 tax file integrated with other administrative data holdings at Statistics Canada, to produce preliminary estimates of international students per academic year and their characteristics using multi-state modeling to provide insight into the impact of this decision.

Post-secondary institutions frequently use surveys to monitor the student experience. Beyond tracking student satisfaction with various offerings and services through surveys, it is crucial for institutional research professionals to identify how their institutions perform in areas that matter most to students. Enter Key Driver Analysis (KDA), a well-known analytic tool widely used in market and consumer research. Despite its popularity in other fields, the use of KDA is somewhat limited in institutional research. This presentation will introduce KDA and demonstrate its application to encourage institutional research professionals to incorporate it into their own survey projects.

Student success and retention is a critical aspect of college planning. At Algonquin College, the Institutional Analytics and Planning department sought to provide a more data-driven retention model to support understanding student success and retention while also supporting student integration officers in providing an evidence-based approach to identifying “at-risk” students. Using regression modeling, we can highlight the characteristics (e.g., first-generation students, high school grades, etc.) and survey responses related to their success here at the college. You will learn how demographic and survey data was set up in Power BI to provide the report and how the Student Success and Retention Department is using it.

We explore the integration of diverse LMI data—ranging from student and employer surveys to population studies and econometric projections from sources like Statistics Canada, Provincial graduate surveys, and private models such as Lightcast. This comprehensive approach not only breaks down informational silos but also facilitates a multifaceted understanding of the job market and student outcomes. By leveraging these insights, institutions can fine-tune their programs to ensure alignment with current and future labor market needs, thereby enhancing student employability and achieving institutional goals such as competitive pricing and revenue generation.

Once mere Excel sheets, Conestoga’s Enrolment Planning System has undergone a remarkable evolution. Now residing within the robust IBM PA1 platform, this dynamic solution not only supports enrolment projections and space planning but also plays a pivotal role in college budgeting. Its’ usefulness was never more apparent when it allowed us to quickly adjust our plans and the budget to accommodate IRCC international student caps.Join us as we delve into the fundamental building blocks of this system. Discover how it operates seamlessly, its inherent flexibility, and its power to guide informed decision-making.

This session explores how the pandemic shifted technology use in higher education and delves into student preferences for learning methods and technology tools. Using data collected by the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association (CDLRA), attendees will gain insights into the lasting impacts of the pandemic on student needs preferences from the perspective of faculty and administrators. Attendees will gain a nuanced understanding of the multifaceted factors shaping student preferences, ranging from institutional culture and funding dynamics to quality assurance imperatives and accessibility considerations. The presenters will also contrast these findings to other studies they have worked on and discuss the implications of the collective findings for institutions.

Since 2021, Ontario has broadened its French-language and bilingual offering in the postsecondary sector. Despite the many options available to French-speaking students in Ontario, we know little about which institutions they choose to attend and the factors that shape these decisions. In this session, attendees will learn how three data sources were used to uncover insights about French-speaking students’ postsecondary application choices, enrolment patterns and decision-making processes. Join us to discuss how this data can be used to assist institutions and government to best support Ontario’s French-speaking student population.

The core principle of strategic enrolment management (SEM) is to improve an institution’s focus on the student experience and student success, and a common failure in connecting institutional analysis to SEM, is a failure to action findings from the data. This session will demonstrate how to identify problem points in an institution’s student experience journey through enrolment funnel performance analysis. Then, using this analysis, how and who to work with at your institution to improve the student experience. This participatory session will provide attendees with opportunities to discuss best practices, pitfalls and successes at their own institutions.

The culture surrounding our students is impacting their expectations and attitudes. Institutions need to be on the watch for how that impact is playing out in their students. Each year CUSC-CCREU surveys thousands of university students on a wide range of issues, including student activities, growth/development, expectations, goals, service use and satisfaction, and disability support. In this session, we will look at multiyear results to assist CIRPA attendees in spotting trends that might shape how they advise their institutions on the provision of student services.

Postsecondary institutions have seen massive changes over the last 4 years, and it remains as important as ever to include the student voice when undergoing those changes. Algonquin College developed their Student Experience Survey to capture this data and using online dashboard reporting can spread the information more efficiently. This essential college-wide survey helps ensure support and resources for students are where they need to be, it also provides valuable information to inform cross-college priority settings and to support the success of all learners at Algonquin College.

This practitioner talk will describe OCAS’ experiments with natural language tools for applicants and explorers of Ontario post-secondary programs, based on program and labour market data using a variety of modern AI tools and techniques.

We include both structured college program data and natural language data, and link college programs to detailed job data, including both O*NET and OaSIS skill and task taxonomies. This talk will outline the market needs, our process, outcomes, and early validation of natural language tools meant to support research and decision making for post-secondary graduates.

When the global COVID-19 pandemic struck in March of 2020, postsecondary institutions quickly made the shift from in-person to almost completely online delivery. In addition to this shift in delivery, much of the economy was dramatically altered, with differential effects across industries. Adapting to online learning, uncertainty about current and longer-term economic future and coping with social isolation was anticipated to have major effects on student enrolment, transfer pathways, and academic performance. This study looks at trends before, during and after the pandemic, tracking student demographics, program choice, student transfer and mobility and academic outcomes at a large Toronto institution, Seneca Polytechnic.

Fanshawe College is in a 5-year transition of Enterprise Resource Plan (ERP) from Ellucian Colleague to Fanshawe One Workday, including Human Resources, Finance and Student Information System (SIS) to make more efficiency. It will transform the processes, data and workflows all into one place. Multi-year investment and implementation requires evaluation and analysis in place to ensure sustained success during the changes into the new ERP and SIS. We propose a user evaluation approach that helps to assess user success, including 3 key metrics and a 5-component framework. The collaboration is ongoing and potentially implemented by Fanshawe One project management team.

Currently, all organizations and industries are facing transformational shifts and changes. Navigating these challenges requires the creation of a data culture that is core to operations and enhances the student experience. Key Performance metrics can help institutions thrive in understanding and driving positive operational performance and showing the interconnectivity of how each area operates to enhance learner outcomes. This presentation will demonstrate how more integrated data and focusing on core measures can create deeper collaborations and help organizations achieve their goals.

The Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (MPHEC) collects Post-secondary Student Information System (PSIS) data from all public post-secondary institutions in the Maritimes.

In winter 2022, 14 universities participated in a collaboration group for the Canadian University Survey Consortium (CUSC) 2022 Survey of first-year students, in cooperation with the MPHEC. Using linkage keys from participating universities, the 2022 CUSC survey responses were linked to the Maritime system-level PSIS dataset. This presentation will explore what factors are associated with persistence after one year in a post-secondary institution and how these can be used to understand students’ pathways.

In a recent survey, 83% of faculty said they want web profiles generated with their data to spotlight their accomplishments. How are you showing your faculty’s research efforts to the world? In this session, learn how automatically generated web profiles from Interfolio can make it easy for researchers to find collaborators in their field, prospective students to find programs and potential mentors, and institutions to see their global impact with a click.