Learning Analytics: a foundation for informed change in Higher education

George Siemens

Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI)

Athabasca University, Canada

January 10, 2011

https://tekri.athabascau.ca/analytics/

http://www.learninganalytics.net/

Black box of education

Hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing

T.S. Eliot

…or where everything connects with everything

1. Introduction to learning analytics

Academic Analytics

“Academic analytics helps address the public’s desire for institutional accountability with regard to student success, given the widespread concern over the cost of higher education and the difficult economic and budgetary conditions prevailing worldwide.”

http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/SignalsApplyingAcademicAnalyti/199385

Learning Analytics

“Learning analytics 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”

Knowledge Analytics

Linked data, semantic web, knowledge webs: how knowledge connects, how it flows, how it changes

2. Rise of Big data

“This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.

The big target here isn't advertising, though.

It's science.”http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory

“Social data is set to be surpassed in the data economy, though, by data published by physical, real-world objects like sensors, smart grids and connected devices.”

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/china_moves_to_dominate_the_next_stage_of_the_web_internet_of_things.php

Blurring the physical and virtual worlds

Central Nervous System for Earth (CeNSE)

http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/intelligent_infrastructure/

Smarter Planet

All the world is data. And so are we. And all of our actions.

http://www.hoganphoto.com/batsto_grist_mill.htm

3. Semantic Web, Linked Data, & Intelligent Curriculum

Integrated Knowledge and Learning Analytics Model: iKLAM

Bringing together physical (organizational resources, presence, libraries) and locational (xWeb) data with online activities (in various places: email, FB, LMS, PLE, CRM)…to improve personal learning and knowledge evaluation

4. Tools & Examples of Analytics

http://research.uow.edu.au/learningnetworks/seeing/snapp/index.html

Educational change driven by analytics

Many, Many concerns

Privacy

Security

Ethics

Ownership

Technical infrastructure and protocols

Skills needed?

Type of analytics Who Benefits?

Course-level: social networks, conceptual development, language analysis

Learners, faculty

Aggregate: predictive modeling, patterns of success/failure

Learners, faculty

Institutional: learner profiles, performance of academics, knowledge flow

Administrators, funders, marketing

Regional (state/provincial): comparisons between systems

Funders, administrators

National & International National governments

Twitter/Facebook/Quora: gsiemens

Newsletter: www.elearnspace.org

Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference: https://tekri.athabascau.ca/analytics/ (February 27-March 1, 2011. Banff, Canada)

Open Course: http://learninganalytics.net