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What are Learning Analytics?
Last week, I announced an upcoming conference in Banff on Learning Analytics (call for papers can be found here). We have also set up a Google Group for discussions about learning analytics and the conference.
What are Learning Analytics? (LA)
Learning analytics is the use of intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections, and to predict and advise on learning. EDUCAUSE’s Next Generation learning initiative offers a slightly different definition “the use of data and models to predict student progress and performance, and the ability to act on that information”. Their definition is cleaner than the one I offer, but, as I’ll detail below, is intended to work within the existing educational system, rather than to modify it. I’m interested in how learning analytics can restructure the process of teaching, learning, and administration.
LA relies on some of the concepts employed in web analysis, through tools like Google Analytics, as well as those involved in data mining (see educational data mining). These analytic approaches try to make sense of learner activity (through clicks, attention/focus heat maps, social network analysis, recommender systems, and so on). Learning analytics is broader, however, in that it is concerned not only with analytics but also with action, curriculum mapping, personalization and adaptation, prediction, intervention, and competency determination."
"Learning analytics is the use of intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections for predicting and advising people's learning."
interview with "David Wiley" about learning analytics
Attempts to imagine the future of education often emphasize new technologies—ubiquitous computing devices, flexible classroom designs, and innovative visual displays. But the most dramatic factor shaping the future of higher education is something that we can’t actually touch or see: big data and analytics. Basing decisions on data and evidence seems stunningly obvious, and indeed, research indicates that data-driven decision-making improves organizational output and productivity.1 For many leaders in higher education, however, experience and “gut instinct” have a stronger pull.
Meanwhile, the move toward using data and evidence to make decisions is transforming other fields. Notable is the shift from clinical practice to evidence-based medicine in health care. The former relies on individual physicians basing their treatment decisions on their personal experience with earlier patient cases.2 The latter is about carefully designed data collection that builds up evidence on which clinical decisions are based. Medicine is looking even further toward computational modeling by using analytics to answer the simple question “who will get sick?” and then acting on those predictions to assist individuals in making lifestyle or health changes.3Insurance companies also are turning to predictive modeling to determine high-risk customers. Effective data analysis can produce insight into how lifestyle choices and personal health habits affect long-term risks.4 Business and governments too are jumping on the analytics and data-driven decision-making trends, in the form of “business intelligence.”
Assessment and Analytics in Institutional Transformation
FREEMAN A. HRABOWSKI III, JACK SUESS, AND JOHN FRITZ
Freeman A. Hrabowski III (hrabowski@umbc.edu) is President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Jack Suess (Jack@umbc.edu) is Vice President, Information Technology, and CIO at UMBC. John Fritz (fritz@umbc.edu) is Assistant Vice President, Instructional Technology & New Media, at UMBC.
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Assessment and analytics, supported by information technology, can change institutional culture and drive the transformation in student retention, graduation, and success.
For more on lessons learned in undertaking transformational initiatives, the value of assessment and analytics, and the role of information technology and IT leaders, listen to the podcast featuring President Freeman Hrabowski, Interim Provost Philip Rous, and Vice President for IT Jack Suess, moderated by Assistant Vice President for Instructional Technology John Fritz: http://www.umbc.edu/ER2011.
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