Listen to this articleInfoSystems offers predictive analytics solution that can change the course of any student’s career. StREAM Student Success System is a behavioral analytics tool that analyzes student habits and alerts to potential problems before it’s too late. Below is our interview with Mike Caffrey, Chief Strategist at InfoSystems:
Q: Mike, tell us something more about InfoSystems and your history?
A: InfoSystems is celebrating 21 years as a Value Added Reseller selling technology infrastructure, mainly IBM, in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. In an effort to leverage our skilled engineers better, we have deepened our services organization to include outcome based technologies covering Security, the Cloud, and of course, Analytics. All InfoSystems’ services are backed by certifications which include data storage, virtualization, cloud, server infrastructure, backup and disaster recovery, network security, software development, voice service and unified communications.
Having won numerous awards in Europe, we are pleased to be the exclusive reseller of the StREAM Student Success System in the United States. The most prestigious of these awards was HP’s Big Data Project of the year in 2014.
Q: Could you explain the function and advantages of your Behavioral Analytics Solution?
A: StREAM Student Success system is a behavioral analytics tool that looks at a students’ digital footprint to measure their progress, alerting tutors, counsellors, and students to potential problems before it is too late. It is the only tool on the market today that’s truly predictive AND prescriptive.
StREAM data comes from a variety of sources that can include door access systems, card systems, library systems, administrative systems, ERP systems, e-learning systems and more. And with our unique algorithms, only StREAM can offer, with a high probability, the opportunity to change behavior weeks in advance of a test score or a final grade.
Competitors want you to believe grades and attendance data is also behavioral in nature but grades and attendance are really historical measures telling us timely intervention was sometime in the past… you can’t change the grade you’ve already received. So behavioral? Perhaps. But what’s predictive about that?
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Q: What was the most challenging part of developing your StREAM Student Success System?
A: StREAM software, powered by HP IDOL, was created in the UK by DTP SolutionPath. Two years in development, DTP was approached by Nottingham Trent University (a college of about 30,000 students) and asked to help them solve the problem of intervening in struggling students’ studies before their grades suffer. The result is a smart, easy-to-use, easy-to-implement, affordable tool that virtually any university can use.
Its truly remarkable and unique.
Q: What makes StREAM unique?
A: Every other product out there uses takes simplistic approaches to achieve similar results. For example, grades as an indicator of success are easy to understand. Poor and declining grades are obvious signs of struggle, but by the time grades start to slip it is often too late. And grades alone will not tell us whether that student is performing at his or her best. Grades can tell us some things but it can’t tell us everything – and never in advance.
Some competitor products try to overlay demographic information to identify which students MAY be at risk. Students that are the first in their family to go to college, are under-funded, and are in a minority group is commonly held example of a higher risk student. Although our competition calls this “predictive”, it is definitely not “prescriptive StREAM focuses on personal behaviors and therefore, does not require demographics to be predictive.
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Q: Can you give us a non-technical description of how the StREAM Student Success System works?
A: I would liken it to your credit score. Certain behaviors affect your score, for better or worse. And if you want to know how you’re doing (prescriptive) you would look at your credit score. In this instance, your credit score is also predictive of your history in paying your bills. If you are interested in getting better interest rates or getting a loan, you’ll evaluate your score and perhaps decide to change your behaviors and therefore your credit score.
This StREAM Student Success System works in a very similar fashion by assigning a behavior-based “score” to every student, by course, and by major. By way of a dashboard, each student can see how his score is trending and how his score compares to successful scores (using data provided by years of successful students) and shows how this particular student is doing for a course at a particular point during the course.
What’s interesting is that quiz and test grades can be used in creating a students score – but its not required. In fact, we’ve achieved an 87% accuracy rate without grade data.
To put it another way, StREAM, by looking at behaviors versus grades, helps a student achieve his potential. That’s why we say, we aren’t all “A” students – but StREAM helps “B”-capable students achieve “B”s.
Q: So you say its Predictive – what does that mean?
A: By using a student’s digital footprint to track against successful behavior patterns derived from years of historic data, we’ve found that we can “predict the future” in terms of academic success or failure, from 6 to sometimes 8 weeks in advance.
Digital footprints can vary by course, by major, and by campus. We know there are hundreds of potential data points comprising the “footprint” which can be collected daily. Some data is obviously more important than others. Some data, can be surprisingly irrelevant. That’s why each implementation requires a 90 day Proof of Concept stage which helps us determine the most meaningful correlations, defining the patterns that have the highest probability of success.
As an analytics offering, StREAM is a decision support tool. On a personal level, it’s a behavior modification tool.
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Q: All of your services are backed by certifications, could you tell us something more?
A: InfoSystems is most proud of skills represented by our engineers and technical sales people. You’ll find we carry certifications, but most importantly, experience in every brand, product, for each vertical we serve.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: We love our customers, the business we’re in, and our people. We want to continue offering the high level of service we’re known for. At the same time, we have rounded out our services portfolio with things we know our customers need. Security audits, Private/Hybrid/Public Cloud designs, Data Center Assessments, and Infrastructure Solutions are just a few areas we will continue to specialize in as we look ahead.
StREAM has been very popular. And we’re working on some other pretty cool things right now – things that have a direct impact on the lives of those around us. Security is white hot. And Analytics – particularly Prescriptive Analytics is cutting edge.
These are exciting times indeed!
Q: How can we learn more?
A: Go to the infosystems.biz and request an appointment or a demo. We will be more than happy to set one up.
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