Learning analytics in European higher education–trends and barriers

Learning analytics in European higher education–trends and barriers

Empirical Study, Publication
Learning analytics (LA) as a research field has grown rapidly over the last decade. However, adoption of LA is mostly found to be small in scale and isolated at the instructor level. This paper presents an exploratory study on institutional approaches to LA in European higher education and discusses prominent challenges that impede LA from reaching its potential. Based on a series of consultations with senior managers from 83 different higher education institutions in 24 European countries, we observe that LA is primarily perceived as a tool to enhance teaching and institutional management. As a result, teaching and support staff are found to be the main users of LA and the target audience of training support. In contrast, there is little evidence of active engagement with students or using LA…
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Towards Computational Psychometrics by Combining Psychometrics with Learning Analytics

Towards Computational Psychometrics by Combining Psychometrics with Learning Analytics

Publication
From a psychometric point of view, assessment means to infer what a learner knows and can do in the real world from limited evidence observed in a standardized testing situation. From a learning analytics perspective assessment means to observe real behavior in digital learning environments to conclude the learner status with the intent to positively influence the learning process. Although psychometrics and learning analytics share similar goals, for instance, formative assessment, while applying different methods and theories, the two disciplines are so far highly separated. This chapter aims at paving the way for an advanced understanding of assessment by comparing and integrating the learning analytics and the psychometric approach of assessment. We will discuss means to show this new way of assessment of educational concepts such as (meta-) cognition, motivation,…
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Which Strategies are Used in the Design of Technical LA Infrastructure? A Qualitative Interview Study

Which Strategies are Used in the Design of Technical LA Infrastructure? A Qualitative Interview Study

Award, Conference, Publication
At the end of April the EDUCON2020 – IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference took place. The Educational Technologies team managed to contribute with a full research paper and a short paper. The full research by George Ciordas-Hertel has the title: "Which Strategies are Used in the Design of Technical LA Infrastructure?: A Qualitative Interview Study". This paper was awarded as best paper the area "Infrastructure and Technologies for Engineering Education". Here an abstract of the paper: In order to obtain a holistic perspective on learning, technical infrastructure at an institutional level can be advantageous for Learning Analytics (LA). If personal data is collected and processed in such infrastructure, legal requirements are of crucial importance. Recent studies have examined various aspects of LA infrastructure, such as ethical trade-offs and stakeholder needs.…
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Tracking Patterns in Self-Regulated Learning Using Students’ Self-Reports and Online Trace Data

Tracking Patterns in Self-Regulated Learning Using Students’ Self-Reports and Online Trace Data

Empirical Study, Open access, Publication
For decades, self-report instruments – which rely heavily on students’ perceptions and beliefs – have been the dominant way of measuring motivation and strategy use. Event-based measures based on online trace data arguably has the potential to remove analytical restrictions of self-report measures. The purpose of this study is therefore to triangulate constructs suggested in theory and measured using self-reported data with revealed online traces of learning behaviour. The results show that online trace data of learning behaviour are complementary to self-reports, as they explained a unique proportion of variance in student academic performance. The results also reveal that self-reports explain more variance in online learning behaviour of prior weeks than variance in learning behaviour in succeeding weeks. Student motivation is, however, to a lesser extent captured with online trace…
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LAK20: Chatbots – An Opportunity for Individual Assistance in Education

LAK20: Chatbots – An Opportunity for Individual Assistance in Education

Conference, Publication
Last week the 10th Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference took place in cyberspace. The Edutec Team not only managed to first organize a face-to-face conference on the local campus Westend, prepare everything for a fully blended conference in the university and finally shifted completely to a fully virtual conference in cyberspace - The Edutec team also contributed scientifically to the conference: Beside Atezaz Ahmad et al., who won the Best Poster Award, a second poster by Sebastian Wollny, Jan Schneider, Marc Rittberger and Hendrik Drachsler was presented to over 500 international educational technology scientists. The manuscript and the poster itself can be accessed here: DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24462.92485
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Radio Beitrag zu Online Konferenzen bei Campus & Karriere

Radio Beitrag zu Online Konferenzen bei Campus & Karriere

Conference, Digitalisation
Für den März 2020 hatte die Community das zehnjährige Bestehen der Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference (LAK20) geplant. Dazu hatte das Organisationsteam nach Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland, auf den wunderschönen Campus Westend der Goethe-Universität. Alle hatten sich darauf gefreut, die Leistungen der Community zu feiern und die Organisatorinnen und Organisatoren hatten die Gäste persönlich begrüßen wollen. Beinahe 600 Teilnehmende hatten sich zur Hauptkonferenz registriert. Dies entspricht einer Rekordzahl für diese Tagung.  Die Situation änderte sich jäh mit dem Ausbruch des COVID-19 –Virus. International wurden Reisebeschränkungen in Kraft gesetzt, und viele Universitäten erließen Maßnahmen, die eine wachsende Zahl der möglichen Teilnehmenden betrafen. Am 13. März 2020 – zwölf Tage vor dem Start der LAK20 - wurde der Campus der Universität Frankfurt am Main gesperrt.  Die Lage war heikel: nicht nur in Hinblick auf…
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Open Learning Analytics Indicator Repository (OpenLAIR)

Open Learning Analytics Indicator Repository (OpenLAIR)

Empirical Study, Open access, Publication
Open Learning Analytics Indicator Repository in short OpenLAIR is a system whose frontend consists of a dashboard. This dashboard will provide an interface that filters out the list of indicators and their metrics that can be used for a particular activity. All our results will be based on the literature that we have conducted previously. Our dashboard will contain learning events, learning activities, indicators, and metrics. Where Learning Event is learning or teaching event occurs during a learner’s activity or a teacher’s activity. Leclercq and Poumay identified eight learning events: create, explore, practice, imitate, receive, debate, meta-learn, and experiment. (Learning) activity is an activity where an action that the learner does in an LMS environment, for example, posting, discussing, uploading, etc. (Duval, 2011). Usually, in the LMS environment, all these…
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Fellowship Of The Learning Activity Learning Analytics (FoLA2)

Fellowship Of The Learning Activity Learning Analytics (FoLA2)

Game, Open access, Project, Workshop
In the last years, research to connect learning analytics to learning design has been on the rise, but there still are a number of steps that need to be taken in order to make a workable connection between learning analytics and learning design. To improve the quality it is important to capture andstructure the design choices and to retrieve data on the behavior, the effects and the opinions about the designed learning activities. In an effort to get (1) input on the learning design choices of learning activities and (2) bridge the gap between learning analytics and learning design, a board game has been developed. The Fellowship of the Learning Activity is a serious game that captures and systematizes the learning design of learning activities. Additionally, the game brings awareness…
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Interview für den Tagesspiegel zur LAK20 Konferenz & Learning Analytics

Interview für den Tagesspiegel zur LAK20 Konferenz & Learning Analytics

Conference, Publication
Während weltweit Schulen und Universitäten wegen der Corona-Pandemie die Türen schließen, soll das Lernen im Internet weitergehen. E-Learning und Lern-Software sollen hier Vorlesungen und Unterrichtsstunden ersetzen. Doch wie kann überprüft werden, wie gut diese Angebote für Schüler und Studierende funktionieren? Eine Lösung, um die pädagogische Wirkung zu erfassen, könnte in der Big-Data-Analyse von Lernprozessen liegen: Wann fiel dem Schüler das Lernen am schwersten, wie oft blieb er im Text hängen, wo machte er beim Rechnen die meisten Fehler? Ziel der neuen Kombination von Informatik und Pädagogik unter der Bezeichnung Learning Analytics ist es, dem Lehrer ein individuelles Eingehen auf die Lernfortschritte der Schüler und Studenten zu ermöglichen. Beim E-Learning entstehen viele DatenIm statt wie geplant an der Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main findet derzeit mit 560 Teilnehmenden die weltgrößte Fachkonferenz für Learning Analytics unter dem Namen „International Conference on…
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