Project Overview
Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS) is an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which recently made its second large investment in 26 colleges and universities engaged in technology-mediated advising reform.
The iPASS initiative provides technology tools and data about students’ academic performance to both students and advisers. These tools and the integrated data help advisers better support students, provide students with more detailed information about their academic progress, and guide them to additional resources that can help. This is achieved by integrating student data such as academic performance in current classes, progress toward a degree, and risk or early alert indicators. In the absence of iPASS, these data may be siloed in different departments or software systems.
This study will address two areas of need: first, increasing the capacity of institutions to engage in high-quality iPASS practices by combining technology with redesigned advising that provides sustained, strategic, and proactive support to students; and second, building the evidence base on the potential impact of integrated, comprehensive, technology-mediated advising.
MDRC, in partnership with the Community College Research Center (CCRC), worked with the study institutions in an initial planning phase through 2016 and is launching randomized controlled trials at three iPASS postsecondary institutions in spring 2017.
