Degree Compass Course Recommendation System

As a regional institution at which over 40% of students are non-traditional learners and over 50% are Pell grant recipients, Austin Peay State University (APSU), in Clarksville, Tennessee, enrolls many students who are unfamiliar with the subtleties of navigating their way through a degree program. To address this challenge, the university developed Degree Compass, a course recommendation system. Inspired by recommendation systems implemented by companies such as Netflix, Amazon, and Pandora, Degree Compass matches current students with the courses that best fit their talents and program of study for upcoming semesters. The system uses predictive analytics and data-mining techniques to combine hundreds of thousands of past students’ grades with a particular student’s current standardized test scores and college transcript grades to make individualized course recommendations for that student. The courses that are the best options for that student are presented in an easy-to-use interface that lists the courses with ratings that indicate how strongly a course is recommended.

The Seeking Evidence of Impact (SEI) program is intended to bring the teaching and learning community into a discussion about ways of gathering evidence of the impact of our innovations and current practices. The goal of the SEI case studies is to provide examples of successful projects evaluating the impact of innovation, technology, and best practices in teaching and learning.

In addition to the SEI case studies, you may find other ELI resources useful in addressing teaching, learning, and technology issues at your institution. To learn more, please visit the ELI Resources page.