Temple’s business school has a data-driven report card that does not mess around

Traditional report cards make no sense anymore. After all, this is the era of data visualizations and open data dashboards.
That’s why MBA students at Temple University’s Fox School of Business get detailed, data-driven accounts of their academic performance by way of RoadMap, a data analytics platform powered by Microsoft’s Power-BI engine.
The system, which has been in the works since the school shifted to a competency-based curriculum in 2014, was built by Vice Dean of MBA, MS, and International Programs Christine Kiely and Cliff Tironi, who manages the Fox School’s Performance Analytics Department.
The system plugs into Temple’s existing course-management tool of choice — that of D.C.-based edtech giant Blackboard — to draw data and offer students a comprehensive analytics dashboard. It tracks individual improvement to baseline information, identifies gaps and areas needing further growth across different competencies.
“No single grade for a single course can capture this kind of development,” said Kiely.

Last month, Kiely and Tironi showcased the tool at Educause, an edtech conference in Anaheim, Calif. There are currently around 250 MBA students using the platform, including a few from Australia’s Flanders University thanks to a partnership on entrepreneurship education.