Happy 8th Birthday, Plaid Analytics
June 20, 2016. Eight years ago today, Patrick Lougheed and I announced the start of Plaid Analytics. It’s been a heck of an adventure, and we’re just getting started.
Andrew Drinkwater
Is New Brunswick Being Shortchanged on International Student Allocation?
With major changes to Canada’s international student visa allocation rules beginning this year, it has been an exciting/nerve-wracking period for enrolment planning in Canada. This analysis suggests New Brunswick is being short-changed on allocations relative to their share of the population.
On the hot seat. Pitching Plaid Analytics.
Within Canadian higher education, everyone has heard about the international study permit changes. In the tech community, many have but they are less familiar with the impacts. Taking the time to explain it to an audience outside of higher ed has helped me think through the core message.
A Tale of Two Provinces: Projecting Enrolment Impacts of Study Permit Changes in Alberta and British Columbia
It’s not too often that the federal government makes a policy that so directly benefits one province over most others (technically two provinces will have large growth: Alberta and Quebec, but we think the latter will struggle to hit their higher target near term).
Modelling Impacts of International Study Permit Changes in Canada
Since summer, the Canadian federal government has been musing about cutting back on new international student study permits. Well, it finally happened. This post discusses some of the potential impacts, and provides an forecast of how enrolments will change as a result of this new policy.
Canada Considering Cap on International Enrolments. What's the Impact?
If I were a Provost, I'd be asking my Institutional Research team to game out what these scenarios might look like compared to our current plans.
Here's what we were expecting at Plaid University:
Is Final Final Final Projection the right Final file?
Scenario planning allows your institution to better plan for what happens when things change, and it can be automated to update in near real time if you need. But it's very hard to keep track of all those scenarios unless you have a robust system that was designed for collaboration from day one.
Why We Built Plaid Forecast
“I’ve got a PhD in robotics engineering, and you’
Is Enrolment Forecasting Cooperative or Collaborative?
Institutional Researchers can unintentionally end up as gatekeepers to the collaborative enrolment forecasting model. They've built it by hand, using tools and skills available to them at the time, but the models aren't built for scale. Plaid Forecast is.
Why Write Code?
Clearly, I love SQL. But do I use it anymore? Rarely. Instead, I use visual workflows for my data integrations.