Part of the Moments that Matter series
The clamour of Freshers Week doesn’t last. Once the induction events, welcome fairs and first-week socials have passed, students settle into the rhythm of term: the same lectures each week, the same commute or walk across campus, the same routine. It’s often in this quieter stretch, once the excitement has faded and the novelty of university has worn off, that the problems start to surface.
A student who was a regular at seminars starts missing them, and it’s easy enough to simply put it down to a rough week. It’s only if you happened to also know that the society they joined so keenly in week two hasn’t heard from them either, or that their name has gone quiet in the flat group chat, then an entirely different picture might start to form: somebody who seemed to be settling in well has started to struggle, and not necessarily with their course.
The university usually has a piece of this story somewhere, just not in one place. A tutor might notice the missed seminars without ever hearing that a society treasurer has watched a membership lapse without a word, or that a flatmate has quietly registered something is wrong for weeks without knowing who to tell. Everyone involved is looking after their own little corner of the world, but no one is seeing the whole of it. Falling behind on a course and falling away from university life tend to happen at the same time, even though the people who’d notice one rarely hear about the other.
Jisc’s current learning analytics service brings some of this together already, joining up attendance, online activity and assessment submissions so that academic and pastoral staff can step in earlier. It’s a good start, though still mostly rooted in the lecture theatre.
For the CIO, the opportunity is to ask what other data is available – and whether that same thinking could stretch beyond the course itself . For example, can universities track if a student is still turning up for the society, the seminar group, the everyday parts of university life that don’t show up on any academic record. Trouble tends to reach those first, long before it reaches an assignment.
None of this data can explain why a student has gone quiet, and it shouldn’t try to. It might be a mental health problem, money worries, homesickness, or simply a hard few weeks. What the data can do is give a tutor or an adviser a reason to check in, while there’s still time for that to matter.
Done well, joining these signals up changes what happens next, not by flagging a problem but by making it more likely someone notices in time. A personal tutor and a wellbeing adviser end up working from the same picture instead of two separate halves of one. A student who might otherwise slip through the gap between one office and another is more likely to get a knock on the door, or a message, from somebody who’s actually paying attention.
That’s what this capability is really for: not a smarter way of keeping an eye on students, but a university that’s a little quicker to notice when one of its own needs a hand.
It needs the same care as anything built on student data – clear thinking about who sees a concern and what they do about it, and students being told plainly what’s being watched and why. Handled with that care, this isn’t about watching students more closely. It’s about making sure fewer of them go quiet without anyone noticing.
Pre Sales Architect
Kevin Mortimer is a Solution Architect with 25 years in technical leadership roles across varied cyber and infrastructure domains. Evangelising technology is a passion especially around sustainability outcomes and community engagement. Kevin is an avid volunteer focussing on supporting young people including; Cub leader, Chair of School Governors and a youth rugby coach.
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