Indiana University has developed a system which is currently being tested in the First-Year Seminar classes.

The Fostering Learning, Achievement and Graduation early alert system was developed to help make communication easier between instructors and students.

“It provides a way for faculty to give feedback to students and to refer them or suggest actions that students can take to improve their performance in the class,” Gilbert Atnip, vice chancellor of Academic Affairs, said.

The system’s ultimate goal is to help student retention and graduation rates.

“The idea behind the system is more communication from faculty and students having a better idea of if they’re having problems how we might address them, [which] will help students be more successful,” Atnip said.

Students can access their feedback through Oncourse and find out how they are performing in the class. There are also various options professors can check off instead of having to write an e-mail to students.

The different information included within the FLAG system includes a student’s attendance for the course, recommendations for improvement and the referral to campus resources.

“There’s a field for suggested actions,” Atnip said.  “So, a faculty member recommends a student should go to the Writing Help Center — that’s one of the things they could check.”

Greg Roberts, academic adviser for the School of Arts and Letters, said the feedback received through the system allows for quick and intentional intervention with those students who may need assistance.

“The system with the participation from the faculty will allow us to intervene with students that are struggling earlier and allow faculty and advisers to contact students with the resources available to them on campus that might improve their grades,” Roberts said.

While the system is not yet completely developed, other campuses are also slowly rolling out the system.

“We haven’t really tried to push widespread usage,” Atnip said.  “We thought it was better to try it on a small scale just to see kind of how it was working.”

The FLAG system is expected to become fully implemented in fall 2012.
IU Southeast is also awaiting feedback concerning any improvements that could be implemented to the system before having other professors use it.

Although it is still uncertain what kind of impact the FLAG system will have and how it will work for the students and the instructors, Atnip said the system could be a useful utility for both groups.

“I think it has a lot of potential to be a good, useful tool for faculty to communicate more frequently and maybe with more details with students than they do now,” Atnip said.

By JENNIFER HARRINGTON

Staff

jeharrin@umail.iu.edu