SBIR Phase II: A Knowledge-Based System to Improve Student Advisement in Two Year Colleges

SBIR第二阶段项目旨在改善学术咨询，并为超过1100万社区大学学生提供咨询。 社区学院为大量非传统的成人学生提供服务，这些学生寻求副学士学位和职业培训，以改善他们的工作和职业前景。 目前，只有四分之一的社区学院学生毕业。 该项目将资助完成一个基于知识的软件系统，该系统利用学术顾问的知识，将他们的集体专业知识编入并转换为一个先进的基于知识的系统，该系统反映了专家顾问将为学生提供的指导和建议。 社区学院面临着提高毕业率的压力，同时面临着严重的预算削减，利用这一计划，社区学院将能够在经济上扩大向大量学生提供咨询服务的机会。 该计划可以根据各个校区的情况量身定制，将他们的课程与学生推荐的专业联系起来，并提供各种各样的职业发展支持材料。 该计划还建立在全国性运动的基础上，为学生提供职业集群和职业途径建议，以提高学生的完成率。该项目的更广泛/商业影响是使2,300多所两年制大学受益，为1100万学生提供服务，其中许多人没有得到任何或足够的学术建议。 在全国范围内，专家们开始意识到，加强学术咨询是提高毕业率的关键组成部分。 然而，由于提供一对一咨询的成本很高，学校面临着预算减少，校园需要工具来扩大他们的咨询，而不会显着增加他们的预算。 没有什么地方比社区大学更严重了，只有四分之一的学生毕业，学生们报告说，学业失败是他们获得学位和完成大学学业的主要弱点。 该项目将完成一个全国可用的工具的开发工作，该工具将为目前服务不足、几乎没有获得教育的广大学生群体提高学术水平。 以知识为基础的系统是围绕全国接受的职业集群概念建立的。它支持越来越少的高中和两年制大学的顾问，以及劳动力发展和其他非校园机构的顾问。 该项目已经得到了加州、华盛顿和内华达州三个州社区学院董事会的支持。

This SBIR Phase II project is designed to improve academic advising and access to advising to over 11 million community college students. Community colleges serve a significant population of non-traditional adult students seeking associates degrees and vocational training to improve their job and career prospects. Currently only one in four students enrolled in community colleges graduate. The project will fund the completion of a knowledge based software system that utilizes the knowledge of academic advisors, codifies and converts their collective expertise into an advanced, knowledge based system that mirrors guidance and recommendations that an expert advisor would provide a student. Using this program community colleges, under pressure to improve graduation rates while confronted with severe budget cuts, will be able to economically expand the availability of advising services to large numbers of students. The program can be tailored to individual campuses connecting their course offerings to a student's recommended major and provide a wide variety of career advisement support materials. The program also builds on national movements to advise students with career clusters and career pathways in order to improve student completion rate.The broader / commercial impact of the project is to benefit over 2,300 two year colleges serving 11 million students, many of whom are not receiving any or adequate academic advising. Nationally experts are beginning to realize that stronger academic advising is a critical component to improving graduation rates. However, due to the cost of providing one on one advising is high and schools and faced with reduced budgets, campuses need tools to expand their advising without adding significantly to their budgets. Nowhere is this more acute than at the community college level where only one in four students graduate and students report advisement as a major weakness in their progress toward degree and college completion. This project will complete the development of a nationally available instrument that upgrades academic advisement for a broad, currently under-served population of students who receive little or no advisement. The knowledge-based system is built around a nationally accepted career clusters concept. It supports a diminishing number of advisors at high school and two year colleges, as well as advisors at workforce development and other non-campus agencies. The program is already supported by three state community college boards in California, Washington and Nevada.