Case Study: Ovum achieves early student-retention insights with D2L Brightspace

Overcoming hurdles to improve student retention

Greenville College, a private Christian liberal-arts institution of about 1,600 students in Illinois, faced a persistent freshman retention problem (around 69.7%, below the national average). Improving student success is a moral and financial priority for the college, which decided to take a fresh, data-driven approach focused on high-enrollment first-year courses.

Greenville implemented Desire2Learn’s (D2L) Insights Student Success System, running a pilot across 18 freshman classes and prioritizing faculty training and small-scale rollout. Early outcomes include stronger faculty buy-in, clear visual dashboards and early-warning indicators that help identify at-risk students, emerging best practices for using LMS data, and a plan to expand the program with the goal of improving retention.

Ovum