Education Institutions Track Enrollment, Retention, and Performance With Information Builders

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Jun 11, 2012) - Information Builders, a leader in business intelligence (BI), information integrity, and integration solutions, today announced that its higher education customers will now be able to improve their analytics capabilities for enrollment, retention, and graduations through its Retention/Enrollment Tracking and Analysis (RETA) application template. By implementing RETA, higher education institutions can leverage student data gathered for state, federal, and/or internal reporting. Without being canned or rigid, RETA adapts to an institution's data, and makes that data easier for executives and administrators to use.

Drawing on Information Builders' WebFOCUS BI platform, RETA features visual analytics to empower data-driven decisions. Functional users with little or no training can track cohorts by term or any other filter or demographic. Additional student characteristics that can be specified include first time in college, transfer, and degree-seeking status. Data can then be charted in graphs, charts, tabular reports, or geographical maps.

"Information Builders recognizes that our education customers face the challenge of delivering top-quality services to students while also balancing the demands of reporting," said Gerald Cohen, president and CEO of Information Builders. "These performance metrics are required by government aid programs, outside donors, and other stakeholders, and it's imperative that colleges and schools be able to deliver them in a timely fashion. "Through the integration of Information Builders' RETA offering, we're ensuring that academic customers have an even better view of their student metrics, which will be key to addressing both external and internal demands."

"Today's academic institutions are faced with a challenging economic climate, reduced funding, and increased demands for efficiency, making it imperative that they have a solid understanding of enrollment levels, student retention, state funding changes, and additional revenue streams from outside donors," said Suzanne DeBlanc, director of Enterprise Systems, San Jacinto College. "At San Jacinto College, we knew the data was being captured, but we needed a way to uncover its business insight. By using Information Builders' RETA solution, we will quickly understand our students' progress, including first time in college students, developmental/gateway course completers, specific cohort achievements, and core completers. RETA allows us to view our data within several categories such as gender, race/ethnicity, campus, and classification. This timely way of data presentment will allow us to be more dynamic when making strategic adjustments to how we help students be successful."

About Information Builders
Information Builders helps organizations transform data into business value. Our software solutions for business intelligence and analytics, integration, and data integrity empower people to make smarter decisions, strengthen customer relationships, and drive growth. Our dedication to customer success is unmatched in the industry. That's why tens of thousands of leading organizations rely on Information Builders to be their trusted partner. Founded in 1975, Information Builders is headquartered in New York, NY, with offices around the world, and remains one of the largest independent, privately held companies in the industry. Visit us at informationbuilders.com, follow us on Twitter at @infobldrs, like us on Facebook, and visit our LinkedIn page.