Case Study: Arab Open University boosts student retention and prevents revenue loss with IBM Watson Analytics

Harnessing analytics to identify and help vulnerable students

Arab Open University (AOU), with independent campuses across eight countries, needed to understand the complex drivers of student progression and retention so it could identify and support at‑risk learners. To analyze multi‑campus, multi‑country data and uncover the relationships behind dropouts, AOU turned to IBM and deployed IBM Watson Analytics (part of its IBM Hybrid Cloud solution) to gain easy‑to‑use, predictive insight.

IBM implemented Watson Analytics to run multi‑year studies, develop key academic performance indicators and a Student Risk Factor score, and enable targeted interventions. The IBM solution helped reduce withdrawn students in introductory math by an average of 34% and raise pass rates by 12%, cut dropout rates by about 18% through quality improvements, boost branch efficiency ~10%, and avoid up to 11% revenue loss by redesigning core course credit‑hours—improving retention, stabilizing revenue, and informing further student‑support initiatives.

Arab Open University

Ashraf Hussein

Dean of the Faculty of Computing and Engineering and Vice President for Information and Education Technology