Ellucian’s patent pending on higher education data sharing model
Ellucian, a company that provides software and services to higher education, has a patent pending on a new data model that it believes will improve the way data is shared across universities' departments, systems and applications, providing a more accurate picture of students' progress. The firm is working with 15 American higher education institutions to develop the model they claim will cull data from multiple platforms and transform it into a comprehensive, "high-definition" snapshot that can track student progress from recruitment to career placement.

Data & Analytics

Ellucian To Launch New Higher Ed Big Data Model

A company that provides software and services to higher education has a patent pending on a new data model it says will improve the way data is shared across universities' departments, systems and applications, providing a more accurate picture of students' progress.

Representatives from Ellucian said they are working with 15 higher education institutions to develop the model they claim will cull data from multiple platforms and transform it into a comprehensive, "high-definition" snapshot that can track progress students make from recruitment to career placement. It will act as a "language translation service," standardizing data across as many as 20 databases.

"To tackle this herculean task, we need to systematically look to big data to ensure the decisions we make for students today will pay off in the form of degree completion and ultimately career success," said Ellucian CEO Jeff Ray.

Texas Tech University is one of the 15 institutions partnering with Ellucian in the project.

"The amount of data we take in for each student and prospective student is overwhelming," said Texas Tech CIO Kay Rhodes. "With the Ellucian higher education data model, we'll help to create a single definition across the entire student lifecycle, giving us a more logical way to access all the data we've captured."