Mike has been on the leading edge of analytics in the higher education industry, helping institutions leverage their data to improve student success. His experience covers most aspects of analytics in higher education, including:
- Enterprise Business Intelligence (Currently the Executive Director of Data & Analysis, Arizona State University, Enterprise Technology)
- Teaching (Taught for 10 years at University of Phoenix, both online and face-to-face)
- Instructional Technology (Supported the implementation of learning technologies at ASU and UOP)
- Commercial Software (VP of Analytics for Blackboard)
- Predictive Analytics (founder of Blue Canary, a predictive analytics company)
In addition to these roles, Mike has been a collaborator and contributor to the higher ed analytics space. He was a charter participant in the PAR Framework, a WCET organized and Gates funded initiative to develop data commonalities across varied institutions. In 2017, he was the chair of the Caliper Product Steering Committee for 1EdTech/IMS Global where he worked with peers to further the adoption of the Caliper standard. In 2020, he was asked to facilitate Instructure’s Student Data Privacy advisory group. He has also shared insights & findings through blog posts, papers, and conference presentations for over 10 years.
Mike has worked in the ed tech space since 2002, and in technology since 1992. This includes five years with Arizona State University, eleven years with the University of Phoenix, two years with Blackboard, and three years with Blue Canary (a predictive analytics startup he founded in 2013). Mike has a Bachelors degree in Mathematics from Lafayette College and an MBA from the University of Arizona. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with his wife and twin daughters, and is a coach/mentor for the FIRST Robotics organization.
Select Papers and Presentations:
2022
Educause Horizon Report – Panelist on inaugural Data & Analytics Horizon Report
2021
NWCCU – Member of accreditor NWCCU’s 2021 Data Council
ASU Data Conference – Developer and host of ‘Sliced’, a live data viz competition taking place at the conference
2020
Educause Transforming Higher Ed – “A Data Practitioner’s View on Synchronous Teaching and Student Success”
Canvas Executive Forum 2020 – “Leveraging Canvas Data & Analytics for Student Success”
Tableau Live Webinar – “ASU: Leveraging Data Analytics for Student Success”
2019
Sprout Labs podcast – “Learning analytics and machine learning in higher education”
IMS Learning Impact Leadership Institute – “How Do We Make Data Work for the Needs of our Teachers and Students?”
Georgia State University – “Chancellor’s Summit on Precision Academics”
2018
Phoenix Data Conference – “Building a Learner Analytics Data Hub in AWS”
Russian University 2035 conference, Vladivostok – “Institutional & Student Data Workshop”
IMS Learning Analytics Summit – “Making Progress with Analytics for Learning Impact and Barriers to Acceleration”
2017
Educause ELI Annual Meeting – “I’m Just a Bill: The Data Science Version”
WCET Leadership Summit – “Making Your Data Analytics Actionable”
Higher Education Executive Forum, Korea – “Learning Analytics at Scale to Drive Student Success”
2016
SXSW Edu – “From Analytics to Action”
Learning Analytics & Knowledge – “Model Accuracy”
Educause ELI Spring Focus Session: “I Want My Data”
Association for Institutional Research – “Data To Promote Student Success: Reporting and Predictive Analytics”
2015
Educause Learning Initiative — “Retention Analytics for Student Success”
Int’l Conference for Online Learning –”Predicting Attrition: It’s Math, not Magic”
IMS Learning Impact Leadership Institute – Panelist – Analytics Supplier Experts
2014
Int’l Conference for Online Learning – ”Demystifying Data Alchemy”
Learning Analytics & Knowledge Data Challenge – First place: “Deconstruct and Reconstruct”
WCET Annual Meetings – ”How It’s Made: Predictive Analytics”
2013
Higher Ed Tech Summit — “The New Math: Is Analytics Adding Up?”
Educause Learning Initiative – ”Persistence Pilot: Using Analytics to Improve Student Retention”
IMS Learning Impact – ”Turning Data into Personalized Student Experiences” (moderator)
Educause Review Online– ”The Ins and Outs of Analytics”
2012
Educause Annual Meeting – “When Learning Analytics Meet Big Data”
Sloan-C Emerging Technologies – “The Predictive Analytics Reporting Framework: Findings and Directions Moving Forward”
Learning Analytics & Knowledge – “Course Correction: Using Analytics to Predict Course Success” (with Rebecca Barber)
Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks – “The PAR Framework Proof of Concept”
2011
American Enterprise Institute Higher Ed Reform Forum – “Using Data in Higher Education: The Why and the How”
Learning Analytics & Knowledge – “Academic Analytics Landscape at University of Phoenix”