Case Study: Southern Alberta Institute of Technology achieves higher student engagement and retention with D2L Brightspace

Southern Alberta Institute of Technology - Customer Case Study

Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) needed a scalable way to help students transition into post-secondary education, support a growing and increasingly diverse Business Administration Diploma program, and improve engagement and retention. To address this challenge, SAIT worked with D2L Brightspace to build a virtual onboarding experience called LaunchPad, designed to give students access to resources, support, and community from registration through graduation.

Using D2L Brightspace, SAIT implemented interactive tools such as Creator+ widgets, discussion boards, assignments, Intelligent Agents, and badges to create a data-driven onboarding course. The results were strong: 2,137 students have used LaunchPad, enrollment grew 86%, semester 1 to semester 2 retention increased by 6.5% overall, and fall 2022 engagement reached a record 81% with more than 1,100 discussion posts and a 94% retention rate between semesters.

Southern Alberta Institute of Technology

Rose Campbell

Academic Chair