Print and digital education materials provider Pearson has announced that the Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC) has extended its contract with the company to power the colleges’ online programmes. ICCOC has worked with Pearson to develop and offer courses online for a dozen years, and the two organisations continue to refine their strategy to identify at-risk students early and offer assistance.
The Iowa consortium includes seven community colleges and serves more than 20,000 students each semester. Using the Pearson LearningStudio platform and its suite of reporting tools, ICCOC has increased at-risk student success rates by 11 percent and course completion rates by nearly 10 percent. As a result of increased revenue due to students’ persistence within courses, ICCOC is able to offer online tutoring and faculty professional development to further impact student achievement.
The online learning format has allowed the consortium to expand access to learning opportunities, with more than 1,000 course sections and 10 fully online degree programmes now available. ICCOC uses Pearson’s Smarthinking on-demand tutoring, in addition to the Pearson LearningStudio platform.
