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

这个SBIR第二阶段项目旨在改善1100多万社区学院学生的学术咨询和获得咨询的机会。社区大学为大量寻求副学士学位和职业培训的非传统成人学生提供服务，以改善他们的工作和职业前景。目前，社区大学只有四分之一的学生毕业。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，将他们的集体专门知识编纂并转换为一个先进的、基于知识的系统，反映专家顾问将向学生提供的指导和建议。社区大学面临着提高毕业率的压力，同时面临着严重的预算削减，使用这一计划，它们将能够在经济上扩大向大量学生提供咨询服务的机会。该计划可以为个别校园量身定做，将其课程与学生推荐的专业联系起来，并提供各种职业咨询支持材料。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道路方面的建议，以提高学生毕业率。该项目的广泛/商业影响是使2300多所两年制大学受益，为1100万名学生服务，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，更强有力的学术建议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，而且学校面临预算削减，校园需要工具来扩大咨询，而不会大幅增加预算。在社区大学这一层面上，这一点最为严重。在那里，只有四分之一的学生毕业，学生们报告称，建议是他们在获得学位和完成大学学业过程中的一个主要弱点。这个项目将完成一个全国性的工具的开发，该工具为广大目前缺乏服务的学生提供升级的学术建议，这些学生很少或根本没有得到建议。以知识为基础的系统是围绕国家接受的职业集群概念而建立的。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利福尼亚州、华盛顿州和内华达州的三个州社区大学董事会的支持。

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.