Transforming Higher Education Data Reporting and Visualization: Introducing Anthology Illuminate

Step into a new era of higher education, leaving behind the days of data silos, fragmented sources, and laborious manual reporting. Welcome to the dawn of Anthology® Illuminate—a revolutionary solution designed to transform how educational institutions leverage the wealth of data they collect. In today's data-centric landscape, where 80% of educational institutions acknowledge the significance of integrated data systems, only a mere 20% have successfully implemented these crucial integrations¹. Anthology Illuminate emerges as the bridge to connect these dots, shedding light on your data universe and paving the way for transformative insights.

At Anthology, we understand the unique challenges faced by higher education institutions. Our holistic portfolio of EdTech solutions and extensive experience in the field enable us to connect your institutional data in a meaningful way. Anthology Illuminate is designed to provide you with enhanced data, reporting, and visualization features that allow you to maximize the value of your teaching and learning, lifecycle engagement, and operational efficiency data.

To achieve our vision for this true institution-wide data platform, Anthology is building on the reporting and visualization capabilities offered through Blackboard Data, one of our analytics solutions leveraging data from Blackboard® Learn. Blackboard Data will serve as the underpinning foundational element of Anthology Illuminate, evolving beyond the teaching and learning area.

Illuminate relies on an integrated data model that combines data from Anthology products and other sources. This integrated model offers higher education institutions a more comprehensive view of the factors influencing teaching effectiveness, student success, and operational efficiency than any one data model can achieve in a silo. With this invaluable insight, every institution can make data-driven decisions that lead to improved outcomes. These are a few ways Anthology Illuminate helps institutions spend less time slicing and dicing data and more time assessing and improving the impact of student success and operational effectiveness initiatives:
 

Unlocking Synergy: The Power of LMS + SIS Data Integration

By seamlessly integrating Blackboard® Learn (LMS) and Anthology® Student (SIS) data within the same solution, Anthology Illuminate offers a multitude of benefits that can revolutionize how higher education institutions operate and make decisions, such as:

• Holistic student insights: By bringing together SIS and LMS data, institutions gain a comprehensive view of their learners. This unified data helps in understanding students' academic journeys, their interactions with course materials, attendance records, and performance metrics. As a result, educators and administrators can identify at-risk students more effectively and offer timely support.
• Enhanced curriculum development: Help faculty members make data-informed decisions about course design and content delivery. By using combined data, they can tailor educational experiences to match learner needs, thereby improving engagement and learning outcomes.
• Streamlined administrative processes: Having this combined data simplifies administrative tasks such as program review, institutional research and reporting, and student success initiative monitoring. This efficiency leads to cost savings and more productive use of staff time.
• Personalized learning experiences: The combined data can also be leveraged to inform the development of personalized learning paths. By understanding individual strengths and weaknesses, institutions can recommend specific resources or interventions, fostering a more supportive and engaging educational environment.
• Simplified reporting: Institutions often require data from both SIS and LMS systems to meet reporting needs from internal and external stakeholders. Data integration helps make data more accessible, potentially reducing the need for extensive manual reporting efforts.

Democratizing Data Access

One of the standout features of Anthology Illuminate is its ability to empower different types of users across the organization. Institutional leaders can access strategic reports to inform decision-making, while data developers and BI analysts can create custom data sets and reports on-the-fly. Even business users can effortlessly access pre-built data sets to create reports and visualizations using no-code drag-and-drop tools. Unlock the Power of Natural Language Data Exploration

With Anthology Illuminate, your data can tell stories effortlessly. The solution includes generative BI capabilities for semantic-based advanced data exploration, enabling users to ask questions in plain language and receive meaningful answers through a variety of visualization types. No need for a deep understanding of data science—just ask a question and get a visual answer.

Expertly Crafted Reports Ready to Use 

To expedite your data-driven journey, Anthology Illuminate offers a wide range of pre-built reports that provide insights into critical variables of student engagement and institutional performance. And the best part? These reports are available at no additional cost for eligible clients. 

Customized Queries, Datasets, and Reports

Anthology Illuminate offers the flexibility to create custom queries, datasets, and reports tailored to your institution's unique needs. No two institutions are the same, and now your data solutions don't have to be either. 

Integrate with Your Institutional Tools

Pull data from Anthology Illuminate into your existing data platforms to access valuable insights within your institutional tools.

"Student success isn’t isolated to a single factor in the classroom or elsewhere; it’s influenced by a broad set of elements across an institution," said JD White, chief product officer at Anthology. "The vision for Anthology Illuminate reflects the need for a more complete view, bringing together data from across our ecosystem of EdTech solutions to put easy-to-action reporting at the fingertips of institutional leaders. A more complete picture means more informed decision-making."

Introducing Our Personalized Client Engagement Program 

At Anthology, we are committed to providing our clients with not only cutting-edge solutions like Anthology Illuminate but also a high-touch experience that truly values your partnership and helps accelerate time-to-value to start harnessing the full potential of your institutional data. Our client engagement program is designed to provide you with the opportunity to participate in a personalized conversation with our product experts to help you start the journey to data enlightenment.

For clients with:

• Blackboard® Learn SaaS and Anthology® Student: If your institution is equipped with both Blackboard Learn SaaS (LMS) and Anthology Student (SIS), you can expect a personalized invitation from your dedicated Anthology Sales and Client Experience representatives. This invitation will extend to you the opportunity to participate in a tailored presentation on Anthology Illuminate. During this presentation, you will gain insights into how Illuminate can transform your organization's data reporting and visualization, and how you can actively shape its trajectory within your institution.

  This is not just a product presentation; it's a collaborative journey in which our product experts will be there to guide you through every step of the process. Your feedback and insights will play a pivotal role in refining and enhancing Anthology Illuminate to meet your unique needs and challenges.

• Blackboard® Learn SaaS only: If your institution currently utilizes Blackboard Learn SaaS, Illuminate will empower you to access pre-built and customized reporting with advanced data visualization and natural language capabilities—enabling you to derive more value from your LMS data than ever before. To ensure you make the most of this opportunity, we are organizing upcoming events that are designed to be immersive experiences where you can delve deep into the world of advanced institutional data and reporting. In the coming weeks, you can expect to receive invitations to these exclusive events.

Keep an eye on your inbox for updates on dates and details. We encourage you to join us on this transformative journey as we illuminate the path to data-driven excellence in higher education. Your success is our success; therefore, we want to ensure that every step of this journey is personalized, valuable, and impactful for your institution. Stay tuned for more updates, and don't hesitate to reach out to your Anthology Sales representative for further information.

Anthology Illuminate is more than just a data reporting and visualization solution; it's a catalyst for positive change in higher education. It's time to illuminate your institution's data and discover a brighter future. 

Contact us today and let's embark on this new journey of data-driven transformation together!
 

¹Tyton Partners, Time for Class: Bridging Student and Faculty Perspectives on Digital Learning, 2023.