{"691307":{"#nid":"691307","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Research Challenges Assumptions About Online Education Success","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAdmissions applications, discussion posts, grades, and activity logs are among the most common signals educators use to gauge whether students will thrive in an online program. But two new Georgia Tech studies suggest those measures tell only part of the story.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/epdf\/10.1145\/3774398.3811595\u0022\u003Estudy\u003C\/a\u003E found that admissions data offers limited insight into long-term academic success. The\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/epdf\/10.1145\/3774398.3811599\u0022\u003Eother\u003C\/a\u003E challenges assumptions about so-called \u0022lurkers,\u0022 students who rarely post in online discussions but may still be deeply engaged in their courses. Together, the studies suggest that what matters most for student success may not be the easiest thing to measure.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPresented at the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/learningatscale.hosting.acm.org\/las2026\/\u0022\u003ELearning@Scale\u003C\/a\u003E conference in Seoul, South Korea, the research draws on data from\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/omscs.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech\u0027s Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS)\u003C\/a\u003E program, one of the world\u0027s largest online degree programs. The program\u0027s scale gives researchers access to data from thousands of learners and allows them to identify patterns that would be difficult to detect in smaller educational settings.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPredicting Success\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe long-term success study analyzed years of admissions and student performance data to examine whether application materials can predict what happens after a student applies. The research focused on three practical issues that can influence student success: who gets admitted, whether the admitted students matriculate, and who ultimately completes the program. OMSCS has always had a unique admissions model that focuses more on holistically evaluating a student\u2019s background rather than GPAs or GRE scores and does not require applicants to have a strong computer science background or undergraduate education.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022OMSCS has always followed a different admissions model from basically everyone else in higher education, so we can\u0027t draw from prevailing wisdom about what students to admit,\u0022 said\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/people\/david-joyner\u0022\u003EDavid Joyner\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/news\/2026\/07\/01\/joyner-appointed-interim-vice-provost-ai-education\u0022\u003Einterim vice provost for AI in Education\u003C\/a\u003E and executive director of online education and OMSCS. \u0022Enough time has passed since we moved to a new admissions system that we finally could step back and look at what factors predicted success.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers found that application materials could reasonably predict admissions and matriculation decisions. But when it came to forecasting retention and long-term success, early-course performance \u2014 not application information \u2014 played an outsized role in predicting whether students would remain in the program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I\u0027ve always thought that success is most predicted by invisible factors like intended time commitment and external incentive to success,\u0022 Joyner said. \u0022But I thought there would be some signal in the application data. It\u0027s encouraging that there\u0027s not.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELearning About Lurking\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnother indicator of student success is participation. It\u0027s often assumed that students who primarily read discussion forums rather than actively posting in them \u2014 sometimes called \u0022lurkers\u0022 \u2014 are less engaged in their courses. Marjorie Ivy, lead author of the second study on lurkers and a 2025 OMSCS graduate, became interested in the topic through her own online learning experience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I\u0027ve been that student in an online course who reads every discussion thread, thinks deeply about the material, feels genuinely connected to what\u0027s happening in the class \u2014 and never posts,\u0022 Ivy said. \u0022That mismatch between what activity logs say about a student and what the student is actually experiencing is what drew me to this topic. I wanted to see if we could give data and language to the quieter forms of engagement that often go unnoticed.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo better understand those students, the researchers looked beyond behavioral data and examined how learners perceived their social experiences in a course. Students completed surveys about belonging, peer interaction, and whether they felt their contributions were acknowledged. Using similarity algorithms and network analysis that examines relationships between different people, the researchers grouped students into clusters of learners who shared similar attitudes about their course experiences. The results revealed that some students who rarely posted still reported feeling connected to their classmates and learning community.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELooking Beyond the Numbers\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlthough the studies examine different stages of the student journey, they arrive at a similar conclusion: Visible metrics often miss important parts of the learning experience. Understanding student success may require looking beyond what is easiest to count.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022My biggest hope is this program will signal to other universities how broken our traditional admissions model is,\u0022 Joyner said. \u0022We should be giving more students the chance to succeed, because higher education is not currently accommodating plenty who can succeed.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETwo new papers show that metrics aren\u2019t the only way to evaluate online student performance.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Two new papers show that metrics aren\u2019t the only way to evaluate online student performance."}],"uid":"34541","created_gmt":"2026-07-27 20:40:19","changed_gmt":"2026-07-27 20:43:22","author":"Tess Malone","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-07-27T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-07-27T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680690":{"id":"680690","type":"image","title":"AdobeStock_1555413892.jpeg","body":"\u003Cp\u003EAdobe Stock\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1785184950","gmt_created":"2026-07-27 20:42:30","changed":"1785184950","gmt_changed":"2026-07-27 20:42:30","alt":"woman taking notes during class ","file":{"fid":"264992","name":"AdobeStock_1555413892.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/27\/AdobeStock_1555413892.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/27\/AdobeStock_1555413892.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":8377234,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/07\/27\/AdobeStock_1555413892.jpeg?itok=z9K968vh"}}},"media_ids":["680690"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETess Malone, Senior Research Writer\/Editor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003Etess.malone@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}