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Are We the Problem?

The NISS’s approach is founded on compelling evidence that colleges and universities inadvertently create administrative and bureaucratic obstacles that are the reason some students drop out of our institutions. The NISS’s core services are designed to empower institutions to identify and to address these barriers to success.

Identify

problems so that universities can understand the ways in which their practices and systems impede student progress.

Implement

evidence-based solutions taught by professionals who have successfully implemented the programs on their own campuses.

Scale

what works to maximize efficiencies and impacts, ensuring that students from all backgrounds can succeed.

What We Offer

The NISS helps universities identify and remove barriers to student success through three core services: the Accelerator, the Diagnostic, and Implementation Support. In addition to these direct client services, the NISS Incubator supports continued research and the development of innovative best practices in student success.

    Explore

    ACCELERATOR

    The Accelerator serves as a gateway to NISS offerings and is free of charge. The Accelerator Learning Portal offers 38 digital courses that walk practitioners through the steps necessary to implement evidence-based and data-informed student success solutions. The self-guided courses cover topics ranging from proactive, analytics-based advising to strategies for addressing courses with high non-pass rates. The Accelerator’s Library is a searchable repository for the latest articles and research studies that explore evidence-based best practices in student success.

    Features

    • featured_play_list Free access to resource library and learning modules
    • featured_play_list 27 published courses on best practices in student success
    • featured_play_list Self-guided learning pathways

    Understand

    DIAGNOSTIC

    The NISS Diagnostic and Playbook is a fee-based service that offers a customized analysis of an institution’s student-support systems and a set of detailed recommendations to address barriers to student access, progression, and completion. The roughly six-month process entails intensive engagement between an institution’s project team and NISS specialists. The Diagnostic includes data gathering and analysis, surveys, interviews, and the co-construction of a set of findings unique to each institution. The process culminates in a customized Playbook delivered in a 90-minute presentation to the institution’s leadership that maps out concrete, scalable steps that the institution can take to improve student outcomes. The selection process for institutions to participate in the NISS Diagnostic and Playbook is competitive.

    Features

    • featured_play_list Analysis of longitudinal institutional data
    • featured_play_list Qualitative analysis of an institution's enrollment management systems
    • featured_play_list Dedicatd NISS diagnostics team includes senior program advisor, coach, and Director of Diagnostics
    • featured_play_list 4-5 month engagement: weekly team meetings and a final deliverable presentation
    • featured_play_list Playbook – key insights and actionable recommendations

    Act

    IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT

    Institutions that have completed the Diagnostic and Playbook may be selected to participate in NISS’s Implementation Support services. These engagements range from one to three years in length and provide intensive, ongoing coaching to help institutions implement the customized recommendations outlined in their Playbooks. In addition to regular meetings with NISS coaches, data specialists, and subject matter experts, institutions have access to detailed implementation modules, live webinars, step-by-step clinics, and cohort learning experiences. The process kicks off with a NISS site visit to the institution and the co-creation of a detailed implementation plan. Implementation Support is a fee-based service and requires completion of the Diagnostic and Playbook.

    Features

    • featured_play_list Intensive coaching to scope and implement action items from Playbook
    • featured_play_list Dedicated NISS coaching team including a senior program advisor and support coaches
    • featured_play_list Structured asynchronous learning
    • featured_play_list 12-36 month engagement: weekly check-ins, community conversations, scheduled webinars hosted by subject matter experts

Approach to Innovation

The NISS is an innovator in student success. We design and test the latest evidence-based approaches that produce better student success outcomes. Research projects are developed by teams internal to the NISS as well as by research fellows from universities across the country. Through the generation and presentation of relevant, high-quality content, the Incubator team strives to advance the field of data-informed student success programming. The Incubator is not a client-facing service; however, the research and development produced here shapes the national conversation on improving student success outcomes. The Incubator pilots programs that feed into the Accelerator learning pathways and then become part of the solutions offered during Implementation Support. incubator