Mining academic data to improve college student retention: an open source perspective

Abstract

In this paper we report ongoing research on the Open Academic Analytics Initiative (OAAI), a project aimed at increasing college student retention by performing early detection of academic risk using data mining methods. The paper describes the goals and objectives of the OAAI, and lays out a methodological framework to develop models that can be used to perform inferential queries on student performance using open source course management system data and student academic records. Preliminary results on initial model development using several data mining algorithms for classification are presented.