Post on 06-May-2015
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Learning Analytics: Envisioning a Research Discipline and a Domain of Practice
George SiemensVancouver, BCMay 2, 2012
Growth of LA interest
Vendors
Driven by externalization of data, new collection formats
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Domains of LA activity & impact
Learning Network analysis Content analysisPersonalization and adaptationPrediction & InterventionSystemic impact
“All-embracing technique is in fact the consciousness of the mechanized world. Technique integrates everything. It avoids shock and sensational events”
Ellul, 1964
Will LA lock-down or open up education?
Research-practice gap
Inter-disciplinary emphasis
Technical, pedagogical, and social domains must be brought into dialogue with each other to ensure that interventions and organizational systems serve the needs of all stakeholders.
Holistic and Integrated Research/ Practice Relationships
The U.S. Department of Education has stated that the “next 5 years will bring an increase in models for collaboration between learning system designers, researchers, and educators”
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Educational Data Mining and Learning Analytics, 2012
To advance as a field, LA researchers and practitioners need to address the following:
(a) development of new tools, techniques, and people; (b) data: openness, ethics, and scope; (c) target of analytics activity; and (d) connections to related fields and practitioners.
(a) development of new tools, techniques, and people; (b) data: openness, ethics, and scope; (c) target of analytics activity; and (d) connections to related fields and practitioners.
Development of tools that are practitioner-focused, rather than researcher-focused
Techniques:Discourse analysis, early warning systems, attention metadata, recommender systems, tutoring and learner models, network analysis, participatory learning and reputation mechanisms, NLP, latent semantic analysis, information flow, sentiment analysis, concept development, automated evaluation, real-time, etc
Many analytics techniques are important – a reflection of LA’s youth
Capacity building: people
Certificates, research/doctoral seminars, ongoing PD
On: tools, techniques, research models/methods
(a) development of new tools, techniques, and people; (b) data: openness, ethics, and scope; (c) target of analytics activity; and (d) connections to related fields and practitioners.
The growing prominence of protected IP can (will) hinder iterative and rapid development of LA techniques
Innovation in LA most significant in the vendor space.
Many vendor-driven innovations are closed and do not meet the basic needs of researchers: open, testable, accessible, and improvable algorithms and tools
Openness
Datasets for researchers & studentsTransparency (algorithms, weighting)Data ownership & access to analytics resultsCultural/contextual: ability to customize
Ethics
Scope of data capture:
moving beyond the LMS and digital-only view of analytics
Integration & usability
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(a) development of new tools, techniques, and people; (b) data: openness, ethics, and scope; (c) target of analytics activity; and (d) connections to related fields and practitioners.
Beyond technical: LA forsensemaking for learners, educators, administrators
http://thedoghousediaries.com/3426
Influencing learning and learning institutions
(a) development of new tools, techniques, and people; (b) data: openness, ethics, and scope; (c) target of analytics activity; and (d) connections to related fields and practitioners.
Learning Sciences
IEDMS
Not everyone has one of these:
Analytics as a multi-person/skill activity
Multiple skillsets rather than only one person (i.e. connected specialization)
Questions
What is the balance point between computers/people?Role of theory? Validate theory? Theory emergence?
How will we know we’ve been “successful”?
Research-informed tools for analyticsContributions to the science of learning that influences classroom(learning space)-level practice through integration LA tools/techniques
What is missing?
What have you found missing in LAK12?
Own the solution
Getting involved with SoLAR
Founding organizations (universities, corporations)
SoLAR Flare Practitioner’s Conference:Perspectives from the Trenches
October 1-3, 2012 West Lafayette, IN
literature and research in three primary domains: networks and social media, learning analytics and datamining, and the future of learning and learning institutions.