Inside A Community College’s Streamlined, Custom Enrollment Data Warehouse Implementation

North Iowa Area Community College (NIACC) is a public community college in Mason City, Iowa with 2,500 students, about half of whom attend full-time.

Topic

Data, Analytics, and IT

The Challenge

NIACC had limited insight into its enrollment funnel and needed a way to make data visible and actionable.

Greg Bailey, NIACC’s CIO, knew that to improve access to enrollment data, his institution needed to modernize its approach to data infrastructure in a cost-effective, customized fashion. NIACC sought a cloud-based data management platform that would enable deep data exploration. Bailey wanted to be hands-on with the implementation process and apply his institutional knowledge and technical expertise to ensure the platform was tailored to NIACC’s needs.

The Solution

NIACC partnered with EAB to create a customized Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) dashboard.

NIACC implemented EAB’s Edify to centralize and synthesize Canvas, Colleague, Navigate, and National Student Clearinghouse data. During implementation, Bailey was in direct communication with EAB’s engineers, vetting design and offering input on code.

The Results

NIACC’s SEM Dashboard offers more accurate insight and puts less demand on the IR team.

The SEM dashboard allows NIACC to understand and strategize around trustworthy data. Bailey participates in weekly conversations with his designated Strategic Leader at EAB, uncovering potential future projects and exploring additional areas of interest for improving NIACC’s data infrastructure.

"
It was important to me to have a level of connection with EAB’s software development team. With EAB, there was no disconnect where I had to work through someone else—I was able to work directly with the team and share feedback on the code. We spoke the same language.
"
Greg Bailey, Chief Information Officer