About These Resources

Student success technology is no longer the sole responsibility of IT teams and select leaders throughout campus. Today, technology tools impact nearly every role and process at an institution. Increasingly, practitioners across many different departments and units must often weigh in on, or even lead, initiatives that include major technology implementations. Yet, in an ever-evolving and complex student success technology landscape, it can be tough to figure out how to ensure our technology initiatives support (rather than impede) our student success and equity goals.

This curriculum, created in partnership with Complete College America, is meant to ease the web of complexity that comes with leveraging student success technology. The modules are based on six years of insight from The Ada Center’s work with hundreds of MSIs and access-focused institutions. To create the curriculum, The Ada Center gathered the most common student success technology-related questions from practitioners across student affairs, academic affairs, IT, institutional research. The tools and resources were then designed to answer those questions and to enable practitioners to strategically address their most persistent challenges, such as how to prioritize competing technology projects, how to make sense of the CRM landscape, or how to have productive and honest vendor conversations.  

Who Should Engage With These Modules?

This curriculum series on Student Success Technology is designed for and with Minority Serving Institution (MSI) practitioners, but many of the lessons here are also applicable across access-focused higher education institutions.

Within institutions, modules can be used by a host of practitioners, including but not limited to:

  • Technology procurement and implementation teams seeking step-by-step guidance around technology readiness assessment, strategic planning, vendor engagement and effective implementation;

  • IT and IR leaders and practitioners seeking to understand how to ensure technology and data approaches are aligned with institution student success and equity goals;

  • Non-IT practitioners seeking a practical orientation to student success technology products and strategies;

  • Leaders interested in understanding the student lens on technology, as well as the various risks and opportunities for students that are associated with common student success technology products.

Navigating Student Success Technology: All Modules

Each module below includes a variety of resources, including webinar recordings, discussion guides, planning templates, group activities, and topical research. Depending on individual and institution needs, practitioners may choose to engage with modules in a different order than how they are presented here. That said, each module begins with an introductory guide or “Starter Packet” with critical background information and a map of each module’s content. We highly recommend beginning a module with its respective introductory guide.

Click “Learn More” under each module description to see all module content.

Upcoming Event: Register for our upcoming webinar with Complete College America on January 29, 2023 to learn more about the practices and insights covered in the materials below.

Module 1: How Can Student Success Technology Advance Institution Goals?

A practical overview of what good student success technology looks like, how the technology marketplace is organized, and key continuing education resources.

Module 2: How Does My College Create a Student Success Technology Plan?

Walk through a process akin to a “chiropractic adjustment” for your student success strategies and technologies by creating a student success technology plan that ensures your technology ecosystem aligns with your student success and equity goals.

Module 3: What Do Students Think About Our Technology?

Explore how to leverage student insights effectively, equitably, and efficiently to build a technology ecosystem that is authentically student-informed and student-centered.

Module 4: How Should We Approach Buying New Technology?

Gather practical insights and best practices to help you navigate this complex landscape, put together an effective procurement team and intentional procurement process, and ultimately support your institution’s efforts to find technology solutions that are aligned with your needs and mission.

Module 5: How Do we Effectively Implement Technology Projects?

Cover the basics of technology implementation success and provide resources for those hoping to rescue a technology initiative gone adrift.

Explore Other Resources from The Ada Center

Access other resources from The Ada Center, including:

  • CRM 101: Making Sense of CRMs in Higher Education

  • The Mishaps Map: Tracing the Root Causes of Common Technology Headaches to Find Optimal Solutions

  • The Advising Technology Planning and Procurement Playbook

This curriculum was compiled with generous funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and was authored by The Ada Center based on six years of insight from The Ada Center’s work with hundreds of MSIs and access-focused institutions. The curriculum would not be possible without the thought partnership and support from Complete College America (CCA). Visit CCA’s curriculum webpage here (link).

Our team would also like to thank the Advising Success Network for championing this work, as well as our student artists Ryan De Vera, Isa Saldivar, and Morgan Liu for helping to brighten this resources series.

While all materials are designed such that teams or individuals can feasibly leverage the curriculum independently. However, The Ada Center and its partners plan to offer facilitated sessions and/or office hours about this content in the future. If you are interested in being notified about these opportunities, please fill out the form below.