Conclusion

Colleges are continuing to take advantage of the increases in student success resulting from both home-grown and purchased predictive analytics systems. Our framework should help guide them through the complex choices they face as they try to decide which type of system to implement. Colleges need to consider the cost, their people, the ability to act on data, and the level of analysis needed when considering building a system in-house. If partnering with a vendor, colleges need to consider the flexibility of the tool, transparency, contract terms, privacy and security, research and evaluation, and professional development. Each of these considerations is important to creating a functional vendor/college relationship.