Berkeley Online Advising (BOA): Transforming Data for Student Success

Berkeley Online Advising (BOA) launched in August 2019 as a locally developed campus service supporting UC Berkeley's undergraduate advising staff in their role of promoting student success. BOA integrates student records from multiple campus sources including the Canvas learning management system, Oracle student information system, and siloed data that has not previously been available campus-wide. It then adds value to this data by offering new tools to support advisors in their day-to-day work while simultaneously integrating data-driven alerts and real-time information about student academic progress. By expanding the community of learning analytics practitioners at UC Berkeley to include academic advisors, BOA broadens the impact of student data and learning analytics. BOA adoption at UC Berkeley has been significant, with more than 100,000 advising notes authored in the platform in under 18 months. BOA has also been a critical tool in supporting the transition to remote, decentralized advising resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation will provide an overview of the historical priorities and decision-making that led to the emergence of BOA, with a focus on the key roles played by partnerships with both advising and IT groups. With more than a year of data-driven alerts having now been displayed to advisors in BOA, initial analysis will be shared on how the type, frequency, duration, and timing of these alerts correlates with student outcomes.