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Ball State University

Ball State University (BSU), founded in 1918, is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana. The university has grown to seven academic colleges and serves more than 20,000 students. Ball State has grown into a world-class university with highly respected programs in education, architecture, business, communications, fine arts, sciences and humanities, and the health professions. In 2020, Ball State identified the need to improve strategic decision-making across the university, with the goal of increasing institutional effectiveness.

 

With this need identified, Ball State knew they required an analytics platform that could gather and analyze data related to recruitment, retention, and financial aid, among other key metrics. But they needed to determine if they wanted to build this platform internally or buy a ready-made platform from a vendor.

 

"I don’t consider analytics a service that BSU outsourced… Instead, I consider the HelioCampus team to be part of our own team. They are very engaged and have augmented our team, adding real value.”
Loren Malm
Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer

Why Ball State Chose HelioCampus

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Quick Time To Value Data

Ball State wanted a data analytics solution that came with ready-made features to start leveraging data and keep pace with competitors. HelioCampus had the expertise and platform to provide Ball State with an accelerated path to processing new data. The HelioCampus platform was able to more quickly address a number of critical needs including sharable retention dashboards, the automation of daily enrollment tracking & analysis to determine the correlation between student groups and retention.

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Extensive Industry Knowledge

Ball State needed a vendor with a deep understanding of the educational landscape and how data analytics can support their strategic goals. Not only did partnering with HelioCampus help the university avoid the painful trial-and-error learning that occurs with in-house development, but HelioCampus also brought years of experience helping institutions collect and leverage data for decision-making which could immediately be put into action.

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A Partnership That Moved Beyond "Vendor"

A Partnership that Moved Beyond “Vendor” - With more than 100 IT vendors that Ball State works with, HelioCampus was the one of very few that had become a true partner. Ball State notes that the experience and expertise that the HelioCampus team brings would have been impossible to hire for and has been invaluable. Beyond just the skillsets of the data scientists and others, HelioCampus’s ability to work across institutions, understand best practices, and how the marketplace is evolving – this is expertise that would be almost impossible to replicate internally.

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Using Data Analytics to Stay Competitive

Partnering with HelioCampus has allowed Ball State to position themselves to successfully compete in the turbulent landscape of declining student enrollment. The university's new data analytics platform will empower it to make critical programmatic and funding decisions—including innovative ways to attract new kinds of students.

Learn More About the Result

Read the case study to learn more about why Ball State identified HelioCampus as the right vendor to partner with in order to accelerate their analytics initiatives and reach their institutional goals.

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