Early Alert
Connecting Students to Resources One by One
With an enrollment of more than 34,0001 students, it could be easy for any student to get lost in the crowd at Brigham Young University. Some students at BYU may feel overwhelmed by the large general education class sizes. Others could fall through the cracks simply because they don’t know where to turn for help when they need it. Between managing rigorous classes, student jobs, and personal responsibilities, each student is dealing with all kinds of unique stressors. Struggling students may not know where to go for help, however. That's where the Early Alert program comes into play.
For instance, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down campus in March 2020, BYU students faced many new challenges: some lost their student jobs, some lost long-awaited opportunities, and all had to adjust to independent learning outside the classroom. Understandably, a number of students struggled to keep up with coursework and other demands..
Early Alert helps students connect to campus resources that facilitate their academic, physical, and emotional success. Using predictive modeling, Early Alert identifies students who are at risk of earning a 2.0 GPA or lower by the end of the semester. The word “early” is intentionally in the name because the programmers behind Early Alert especially wanted struggling students to be given enough time to raise their grades before the end of the semester. According to Rachel Jenkins, a data scientist who works on Early Alert with the Academic Research and Reporting Team in Enrollment Services, the program’s purpose is to identify students who need help before it’s too late. “The earlier we can figure it out,” Jenkins said,“ the easier helping them is.”
Early Alert uses over 250 unique risk factors, and the algorithm changes throughout the semester. For example, the algorithm looks at different risks more closely than others depending on how far into the semester students are. “At the very beginning of the semester, we have no grades, we have no test scores, we have no attendance at labs...so those things don’t matter nearly as much,” Jenkins explained.
There are some students who may be at risk at the beginning of a semester, however. First-year or first-generation students, or students taking a combination of challenging courses, may face additional risks. Once the semester progresses past a certain point, the algorithm focuses in on grades, attendance, and other decision-based factors that can affect student success. After Early Alert identifies an at-risk student, the program generates a customized email to the student regarding his or her risk factors. For example, if Early Alert predicts a first-year student is more than 50% likely to earn lower than a 2.0 GPA for the semester, the student receives a message encouraging her or him to meet with a mentor. Similarly, a student in an especially difficult class may get a high-risk score from Early Alert and subsequently receive a message about academic resources for that specific class.
But the program is more than an algorithm that sends out emails. “There’s an entire community that’s been developed, and that community works together to help the students,” said Jenkins. Members of the community include advisors who utilize Early Alert data to identify the students who need help so they can reach out and work directly with them. Other community members include staff in the First Year Experience office, the Academic Support Office, the Multicultural Office, and Enrollment Service Counselors. These four teams have supported the Early Alert program since its inception in 2018. The Early Alert community now includes personnel from most colleges’ advisement centers and other student-serving offices across campus.
Early Alert is primarily “a way to connect [student] needs with the resources that are already there,” Jenkins said. Choosing which resources to connect the students to depends on their individual circumstances. For instance, first-generation students may struggle financially if they don’t know how to access financial aid resources. Advisors who work with Early Alert data can connect those students with the Financial Aid Office to find out what funding resources are available to them. For other students, difficult life circumstances may be the underlying cause of their academic struggle. Advisors can connect these students to Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) to get the support they need. And, sometimes, a student just needs to meet with an advisor and know that someone at BYU cares.
The biggest change Early Alert data has fostered is the added ability it gives to advisors and faculty to identify the students that may need their assistance before the student would normally ask for help. One example of Early Alert connecting a student to the right resources happened when one senior enrolled in an especially rigorous schedule. Before classes began, Early Alert notified the advisor that the student’s risk level was high. When the advisor met with the student, the student explained that he was taking a difficult course load so that he could graduate at the end of the semester. The advisor and student then discussed a plan that helped the student have a successful semester and graduate. After the meeting, the student expressed gratitude that someone at BYU was aware of his challenge and reached out to help.
While the program has certainly aided the students who have received help from Early Alert, it has also benefited the students who worked on the program. From the beginning, this project has been students working to make a difference in the lives of other students. David Reber, a recent master’s degree student in mathematics, originally worked on the design and created the first team of students. Later the team included Eric Todd, a recent graduate of the applied and computational mathematics emphasis (ACME) undergraduate program. Todd was instrumental in fine-tuning the Early Alert algorithm when he interned for Enrollment Services. He learned that the practical applications of the academic principles he was learning in class can be used to help students stay on course as they progress toward graduation. “My internship was valuable to me because it allowed me to see that what I am learning in my classes is useful,” Todd said. He has since completed other faculty-mentored research and is nearing completion of master's degree in computer science at BYU.
Early Alert is not be a magic wand, but it can help identify struggling students. The program has especially proven to be a valuable tool that can connect students to a myriad of individuals that are waiting and ready to help. “BYU truly cares about their students,” Jenkins said. And Early Alert is just one more way “we’re working to help students find the right resources.”
By Angela Cava
1. "Facts & Figures," Brigham Young University, byu.edu, accessed May 4, 2022, https://www.byu.edu/facts-figures.