Use Cases

A "Tool Belt" to Tie Data from Different Software Together

Many schools feel that no one system can do everything well for each department’s unique and specialized needs. Schools have told us they:

Are skeptical of systems claiming to be all-in-one solutions (“Jack of all trades, master of none”)
Need to retain a legacy system for “a few more years” in one department but still want to purchase highly specialized software for another department
Want to use university paid for systems for some software (e.g., SIS, LMS) and augment with highly specialized professional software (e.g., high stakes exam software, clinical evaluations, advising)
Need to use university mandated systems for some functions, but departments can select the software that best suits their needs for specialty systems

Instead of a “one size fits all” approach, these schools want a way to seamlessly integrate all these systems. Instead of one tool, they need a tool belt to tie all the best software together.

Dozens of professional schools have used ProgressIQ to unify all relevant data together into a modern interface for students, faculty, staff, and administration. And if one of those schools ever decides to add or change mission critical systems, the school is empowered and ready to do so with ProgressIQ as its tool belt.

Change Your Mission Critical Systems When You Need To

While you might prefer not to change mission critical systems in the middle of an academic year, it is often necessary to do so! The challenge is to do so in a way that does not disrupt service and appears seamless to end users.

ProgressIQ helps clients do just that. One client said: “With ProgressIQ, we were able to change our rotations management software in the middle of the academic year.” ProgressIQ integrates and stores current and historical student academic data from all major rotations management vendors. To users – faculty, students, and administrators – the transition from one system to another is seamless, because they access the data through the same web and mobile friendly interface.

Additionally, ProgressIQ backloaded all of the data from the previous three rotations systems that they had cycled through, as their needs evolved. “We now know we have the freedom to change systems when we need to, and still have ready access to all of our data as though it came from one system.”

ProgressIQ frees universities, colleges, and individual departments to select the best software for their respective needs—and change them when appropriate to their mission—as their needs change and grow.

Transition Home-grown Processes to Vendor Supported Software

Finding it difficult and expensive to maintain their custom-coded, inhouse, ColdFusion solution from the late 1990s, one medical school decided to move their processes to vendor supported software. The school wanted to take advantage of a more modern LMS for pre-clinical courses and wanted to use the same rotations management software that its major teaching hospital system had adopted. ProgressIQ worked with them to integrate these new systems and to backload data from their old systems.

A major challenge for the client was to transition the custom workflows (developed over decades!) into a new system. While ProgressIQ is not custom software, our team loves to abstract challenges for one customer into tools that can serve many. (And our pricing model on this will surprise you!) Loving a challenge, our customer support team worked closely with the client to creatively leverage existing ProgressIQ functionality to meet the client’s needs. Where developing new ProgressIQ features would help the client and other clients, ProgressIQ created these features and made the new functionality available for all its clients.

ProgressIQ cannot guarantee that your college will be able to port all existing custom workflows. If we are not a good fit, we will be honest and tell you so. We CAN assure you that our experienced customer team will listen earnestly and creatively problem-solve while exploring your needs. It is our goal to ensure you get the full value from ProgressIQ.

Protect the Public and Document Student Performance

What happens when your school simply can’t locate student performance committee documentation?

One school adopted ProgressIQ specifically because this embarrassing and concerning situation occurred. This client has a “three strikes, you’re out” policy for students who are censured by the Student Performance Committee (SPC). Before ProgressIQ, this client relied on paper records, file folders, and a cadre of spreadsheets to keep track of which students had been to the SPC. As she sat in on a supposedly “second strike” SPC meeting, one of the associate deans later told us she was positive that a particular student had been to the SPC twice before in years past. However, at the time of this critical meeting, the SPC could not produce the records to prove this was the third visit and allowed the student to graduate medical school.

Over a year later, when the former student was well into his residency, the client found the records proving the student had been to SPC three times. By their own written policy, the student should not have graduated! This put the school in a significant ethical, legal, and financial dilemma.

The client adopted ProgressIQ, stating:

We never want this to happen again. With ProgressIQ, the entire academic record, including every score, all evaluations, every visit to the SPC—everything—is in one place. During SPC all members and the student view the record on the same web page. If we had ProgressIQ at the time, we would have immediately dismissed this student—ensuring he did not practice medicine. Our first and foremost duty is to protect the public. When we must dismiss students, the supporting documented evidence must be clear, convincing, and overwhelming. ProgressIQ has greatly reduced the potential for lawsuits. Most importantly, ProgressIQ helps us rest a little easier knowing that we have done our best to protect future patients.

Residency Advising for Medical Students

Medical schools can advise students on their likelihood of matching to a particular specialty starting in their first year of medical school. Too often, residency advising happens “after the boards”, when it is too late for students to make meaningful adjustments. With licensing exams changing to pass/no pass, predictive dashboards for student advising are even more critical to student residency match success.

Using student academic performance data and residency match information from previous graduating classes, one client developed a predictive model of the likelihood that a student will match to the residency of their choice. The client then displayed that model as a dashboard in ProgressIQ with an easy to interpret red/yellow/green display per student for each residency type. Students and advisors had instant and secure access to this invaluable information.

Key to the dashboard’s adoption is thoughtful design for intuitive and actionable interpretation. “What was unique about this dashboard is that it acted as both an early warning system for students off track and reassurance for students who were on target to match to their chosen residency specialties,” says Scott Helf, of ProgressIQ, who helped architect the dashboard.

When failure isn’t failure: Careful documentation and student advising can make all the difference

Student Dr. R dreamed of becoming an obstetrician gynecologist. She was passionate about women’s health. For the first year and a half of medical school she excelled in her coursework, and by all indications was doing very well. She met regularly with her academic advisor, often proactively reaching out and scheduling check-ins. Then, one day, she scored lower than usual on a mid-term for the Respiratory Medicine course. Her advisor was alerted through ProgressIQ. The advisor checked Student Dr. R’s Snapshot of academic performance and emailed his advisee about this uncharacteristic “blip”.

Student Dr. R explained that she was embarrassed and distracted. Her mother was diagnosed with a serious health issue the night before the exam. Student Dr. R repeatedly stated that she took full responsibility for her academic performance, and the advisor documented their plan going forward in ProgressIQ. Unfortunately, two weeks later Student Dr. R failed the final exam and the course.

Again, she met with her advisor. Student Dr. R related that her mother had undergone surgery the day of the exam, her husband was out of town defending his dissertation, and she had two small children at home. Throughout, she “made no excuses”, was very apologetic for her performance, and took full responsibility. Her advisor documented the meeting thoroughly in ProgressIQ.

All students who fail a course in her program must go to the Student Performance Committee (SPC). The SPC reviewed her entire academic performance in ProgressIQ, which included the notes from her meetings with her academic advisor. The SPC made three key observations: (1) Other than this one course failure, the student was academically strong; (2) The student had significant “real-life” issues—which were quite serious and would distract anyone; (3) Yet, Student Dr. R repeatedly took full responsibility and was eager to continue excelling in her academic studies. The SPC recommended that she remediate the course during summer and be closely monitored going forward. The SPC documented their recommendations in ProgressIQ, noting how impressed they were with how professionally the student conducted herself during the meeting and throughout her academic journey.

Student Dr. R went on to successfully remediate the course and did very well in her coursework, on the licensing boards, and during clinical rotations. What seemed like a “failure” turned out to be a thoroughly documented story of strength, character, perseverance, and grit. Her story of overcoming significant challenges was documented in ProgressIQ, and carried forward into her MSPE, read by program directors selecting residents.

Student Dr. R. is now “Dr. R”, having matched successfully. She now practices obstetrics and gynecology and is a strong advocate for women’s health issues. Her mother made a full recovery, her husband is a professor, her children are young adults.

Let us show you how it works!

Find out how ProgressIQ and ProgressInsights can help your school integrate trustworthy data, support student and program success, generate actionable insights for student, course, cohort, and institutional decision making, and ensure you are always ready for every accreditation visit.

SCHEDule A DEMO