Learning analytics

Draft

Introduction

One could define learning analytics as collection of methods that allow teachers and maybe the learners to understand what is going on. I.e. all sorts of tools that allow to gain insight on participant's behavior and productions.

The Society for Learning Analytics Research Open Learning Analytics proposal associates learning analytics with the kind of "big data" that are used in busines intelligence: {{quotationbox| The rapid development of “big data” methods and tools coincides with new management and measurement processes in corporations. The term “business intelligence” is used to describe this intersection of data and insight. When applied to the education sector, analytics fall into two broad sectors (Table 1): learning and academic.

Learning analytics (LA) is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs. Learning analytics are largely concerned with improving learner success.

Academic analytics is the improvement of organizational processes, workflows, resource allocation, and institutional measurement through the use of learner, academic, and institutional data. Academic analytics, akin to business analytics, are concerned with improving organizational effectiveness. }

In other words, learning analytics concerns people concerned by teaching and learning, e.g. learners themselves, teachers, course designers, course evaluators, etc. Learning analytics is seen {{quotation|LA as a means to provide stakeholders (learners, educators, administrators, and funders) with better information and deep insight into the factors within the learning process that contribute to learner success. Analytics serve to guide decision making about educational reform and learner-level intervention for at-risk students. (Simons et al. 2011: 5)

In that sense, this definition is political and like many other constructs in the education sciences it promises better education. We therefore conclude the introduction that learning analytics either can be either be seen as tools that should be integrated into the learning environment and scenario with respect to specific teaching goals or as a more general and "bigger device" for doing "education intelligence" and also would include the former.

Technology

Some kinds of learning analytics have been known and used since education education exists like:

• Grades
• learning portfolios (use quite a lot in professional education)
• Tracking tools in learning management systems

The SoLAR strategy

The proposal starts somehow with the assumption that education continues to use rather simple tools like courseware or somewhat now popular web 2.0 tools like personal learning environments. I.e. they do not assume that learner/teacher cockpits could be built for start into activity-based learning environments

Links

Organizations

• Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), “on inter-disciplinary network of leading international researchers who are exploring the role and impact of analytics on teaching, learning, training and development.”
• International Educational Data Mining Society

Bibliography

• Haythornthwaite, C. (2008). Learning relations and networks in web-based communities. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 4(2), 140-158.

• Siemens George; Dragan Gasevic, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Shane Dawson, Simon Buckingham Shum, Rebecca Ferguson, Erik Duval, Katrien Verbert and Ryan S. J. d. Baker (2001). Open Learning Analytics: an integrated & modularized platform

Proposal to design, implement and evaluate an open platform to integrate heterogeneous learning analytics techniques, Society for Learning Analytics Research.PDF, retrieved 20:25, 1 March 2012 (CET).

• Siemens, G., Long, P. (2011). Penetrating the Fog: Analytics in learning and education. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 46, no. 4 (July/August 2011)

Planned:

• The Journal of Educational Technology and Society Special Issue on Learning Analytics due in 2012.
• American Behavioral Scientist Special Issue on Learning Analytics due in 2012.