Educational Analytics

"The Social Networks Adapting Pedagogical Practice (SNAPP) tool performs real-time social network analysis and visualization of discussion forum activity within popular commercial and open source Learning Management Systems (LMS). SNAPP essentially serves as a diagnostic instrument, allowing teaching staff to evaluate student behavioral patterns against learning activity design objectives and intervene as required a timely manner. Valuable interaction data is stored within a discussion forum but from the default threaded display of messages it is difficult to determine the level and direction of activity between participants. SNAPP infers relationship ties from the post-reply data and renders a social network diagram below the forum thread. The social network visualization can be filtered based upon user activity and social network data can be exported for further analysis in NetDraw. SNAPP integrates seamlessly with a variety of Learning Management Systems (Blackboard, Moodle and Desire2Learn) and must be triggered while a forum thread is displayed in a Web browser."

"Introduction In this discussion paper, we define learning process analytics as a collection of methods that allow teachers and learners to understand what is going on in a' 'learning scenario, i.e. what participants work(ed) on, how they interact(ed), what they produced(ed), what tools they use(ed), in which physical and virtual location, etc. Learning analytics is most often aimed at generating predictive models of general student behavior. So-called academic analytics even aims to improve the system. We are trying to find a solution to a somewhat different problem. In this paper we will focus on improving project-oriented learner-centered designs, i.e. a family of educational designs that include any or some of knowledge-building, writing-to-learn, project-based learning, inquiry learning, problem-based learning and so forth. We will first provide a short literature review of learning process analytics and related frameworks that can help improve the quality of educational scenarios. We will then describe a few project-oriented educational scenarios that are implemented in various programs at the University of Geneva. These examples illustrate the kind of learning scenarios we have in mind and help define the different types of analytics both learners and teachers need. Finally, we present a provisional list of analytics desiderata divided into "wanted tomorrow" and "nice to have in the future"."

Jacqueline Bichsel - 2012 EDUCAUSE Many colleges and universities have demonstrated that analytics can help significantly advance an institution in such strategic areas as resource allocation, student success, and finance. Higher education leaders hear about these transformations occurring at other institutions and wonder how their institutions can initiate or build upon their own analytics programs. Some question whether they have the resources, infrastructure, processes, or data for analytics. Some wonder whether their institutions are on par with other in their analytics endeavors. It is within that context that this study set out to assess the current state of analytics in higher education, outline the challenges and barriers to analytics, and provide a basis for benchmarking progress in analytics.

July 18, 2012 College Degrees, Designed by the Numbers By Marc Parry Illustration by Randy Lyhus for The Chronicle Campuses are places of intuition and serendipity: A professor senses confusion on a student's face and repeats his point; a student majors in psychology after a roommate takes a course; two freshmen meet on the quad and eventually become husband and wife. Now imagine hard data substituting for happenstance. As Katye Allisone, a freshman at Arizona State University, hunkers down in a computer lab for an 8:35 a.m. math class, the Web-based course watches her back. Answers, scores, pace, click paths-it hoovers up information, like Google. But rather than personalizing search results, data shape Ms. Allisone's class according to her understanding of the material.

Learning Emergence deep learning | complex systems | transformative leadership | knowledge media

Conference Papers - Networked Learning Conference Symposia Symposium Number Symposium Details

Reflective learning at Work

Early Alert Program The Early Alert classroom assistance program at Sinclair Community College is an intervention program teaming faculty, counselors, and advisors together in order to promote the success of students facing challenges.   An Overview:    Early Alert is an intervention program that allows for faculty to notify advisors/counselors of issues that may affect the success of a student.  It is a simple way of assisting students in difficulty find the help they need while taking very little time. Web-based Early Alert notifications are easy ways to promote the retention efforts of the college and the success of students. Utilized currently in all DEV courses, English 111, select Math courses, and SCC 101 courses.

Flare at Purdue in October    Hi everyone. Can someone provide more information for the upcoming SoLAR FLARE event at Purdue in October? Thanks, Kelvin Bentley By Kelvin Bentley  - May 14 - 2 new of 2 messages - Report as spam     EDUCAUSE Survey on Analytics - Looking for International Input    Colleagues, EDUCAUSE is soliciting input on analytics in higher education. They have currently sent email to their current members, but are looking for additional participation from the international community. We would greatly appreciate if you could complete the survey below. -- john... more » By John Campbell - Purdue  - May 11 - 2 new of 2 messages - Report as spam     CFP: #Influence12: Symposium & Workshop on Measuring Influence on Social Media    Hi Everyone, If you are interested in Learning Analytics and Social Media, I invite you to submit a short position paper or poster to the Symposium & Workshop on Measuring Influence on Social Media. The event is set for September 28-29, 2012 in beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. All submissions are due *June 15, 2012*.... more » By Anatoliy Gruzd  - May 11 - 2 new of 2 messages - Report as spam     LA beginnings    Learning Analytics isn't really new, it is just getting more publicity now as a result of the buzz word name change. Institutions have been collecting data about students for a long time, but only a few people dealt with the data. Instructors kept gradebooks and many tracked student progress locally - by hand. What's new about Learning... more »

Analytics in Higher Education: Establishing a Common Language Title: Analytics in Higher Education: Establishing a Common Language (ID: ELI3026) Author(s): Angela van Barneveld (Purdue University), Kimberly Arnold (Purdue University) and John P. Campbell (Purdue University) Topics: Academic Analytics, Action Analytics, Analytics, Business Analytics, Decision Support Systems, Learning Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Origin: ELI White Papers, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) (01/24/2012) Type: Articles, Briefs, Papers, and Reports

First, the ongoing exploration of the reliability and validity of the psychometric assessment instrument designed to measure and stimulate change in learning power, for which I was one of three originators between 2000 and 2002. To date I have been able to collect large data sets (n=>50,000) and have published reliability and validity statistics in four  peer reviewed journal articles. Second, the application of the concept and assessment of learning power in pedagogy in school, community and corporate sectors, and in particular its contribution to personalisation of learning through authentic enquiry. Third, the contribution of learning power and enquiry to what we know about complexity in education, particularly through the development of systems learning and leadership as a vehicle for organisational transformation. Finally, the application of learning power assessment strategies to the emerging field of learning analytics and agent-based modelling.

Training course on learning analytics by George Siemens et al.

educause learning initiative 2012 online spring focus session: learning analytics Teaching and Learning Community's ideas

George Siemens's PPT at ELI focus group

December 22, 2011 IBM Solidifies Academic Analytics Investments Datanami Staff As their own detailed report in conjunction with MIT Sloan made clear, IBM is keenly aware of the dramatic talent shortfall that could keep the future of big data analytics in check. Accordingly, the company is stepping in to boost analytics-driven programs at universities around the world. A report out of India this week indicated that Big Blue is firming up its investments at a number of academic institutions worldwide in the hopes of readying a new generation of analytics graduates. This effort springs from the company's Academic Initiative, which is the IBM-led effort to partner with universities to extend the capabilities of institutions to provide functional IT training and research opportunities.

People | Member | Simon Buckingham Shum Snr Lecturer in Knowledge Media I am fundamentally interested in technologies for sensemaking, specifically, which structure discourse to assist reflection and analysis. Examples: D3E, Compendium, ClaiMaker and Cohere.

Recommended for You March 16, 2012 - 3:00am By Steve Kolowich Completing assignments and sitting through exams can be stressful. But when it comes to being graded the waiting is often the hardest part. This is perhaps most true at the end of a semester, as students wait for their instructors to reduce months of work into a series of letter grades that will stay on the books forever. But at Austin Peay State University, students do not have to wait for the end of a semester to learn their grade averages. Thanks to a new technology, pioneered by the university's provost, they do not even have to wait for the semester to start.

While generic web analytics tend to focus on easily harvested quantitative data, Learning Analytics will often seek qualitative understanding of the context and meaning of this information. This is critical in the case of dialogue, which may be employed to share knowledge and jointly construct understandings, but which also involves many superficial exchanges. Previous studies have validated a particular pattern of "exploratory dialogue" in learning environments to signify sharing, challenge, evaluation and careful consideration by participants. This study investigates the use of sociocultural discourse analysis to analyse synchronous text chat during an online conference. Key words and phrases indicative of exploratory dialogue were identified in these exchanges, and peaks of exploratory dialogue were associated with periods set aside for discussion and keynote speakers. Fewer individuals posted at these times, but meaningful discussion outweighed trivial exchanges. If further analysis confirms the validity of these markers as learning analytics, they could be used by recommendation engines to support learners and teachers in locating dialogue exchanges where deeper learning appears to be taking place.

Drawing on sociocultural discourse analysis and argumentation theory, we motivate a focus on learners' discourse as a promising site for identifying patterns of activity which correspond to meaningful learning and knowledge construction. However, software platforms must gain access to qualitative information about the rhetorical dimensions to discourse contributions to enable such analytics. This is difficult to extract from naturally occurring text, but the emergence of more-structured annotation and deliberation platforms for learning makes such information available. Using the Cohere web application as a research vehicle, we present examples of analytics at the level of individual learners and groups, showing conceptual and social network patterns, which we propose as indicators of meaningful learning.