New Pub: Students Want to Experiment While Teachers Care More About Assessment! Exploring How Novices and Experts Engage in Course Design

New Pub: Students Want to Experiment While Teachers Care More About Assessment! Exploring How Novices and Experts Engage in Course Design

Computer-supported collaborative learning, Conference, Conference, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Learning Design, New Pub, Open access, Open science, Publication, Technical paper
Abstract: Learning Design (LD) is the strategic orchestration of educational components to create a rewarding experience for students and educators. Adapting it to real-world scenarios with evolving technologies, like learning analytics (LA), adds complexity but offers the potential for enhanced learning outcomes and engagement. Prior research highlights the growing importance of LA in informing LD decisions. The FoLA2 method offers a collaborative approach to course design considering LA implications. This study pursues two primary objectives. Firstly, to enhance the FoLA2 method by granting course designers access to the Open Learning Analytics Indicator Repository (OpenLAIR) that facilitates visual connections between LD pedagogies, LDLA activities, LA indicators and their metrics. Secondly, to explore how novice and expert groups utilize the FoLA2 methodology to design a course in Technology Enhanced Learning. The findings…
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New Pub: From the Automated Assessment of Student Essay Content to Highly Informative Feedback: a Case Study

New Pub: From the Automated Assessment of Student Essay Content to Highly Informative Feedback: a Case Study

Artificial Intelligence, Assessment, Computational Psychometrics, Empirical Study, Feedback, Higher Education, Journal, Publication, Special Issue, Technical paper
How can we give students highly informative feedback on their essays using natural language processing? In our new paper, led by Sebastian Gombert, we present a case study on using GBERT and T5 models to generate feedback for educational psychology students. In this paper: ➡ We implemented a two-step pipeline that segments the essays and predicts codes from the segments. The codes are used to generate feedback texts informing the students about the correctness of their solutions and the content areas they need to improve. ➡ We used 689 manually labelled essays as training data for our models. We compared GBERT, T5, and bag-of-words baselines for both steps. The results showed that the transformer-based models outperformed the baselines in both steps. ➡ We evaluated the feedback with a learner cohort…
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New Pub: LAxplore: An NLP-Based Tool for Distilling Learning Analytics and Learning Design Instruments out of Scientific Publications

New Pub: LAxplore: An NLP-Based Tool for Distilling Learning Analytics and Learning Design Instruments out of Scientific Publications

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Conference, Learning Analytics, Learning Design, New Pub, Open access, Publication, Technical paper
Abstract: Each year, the amount of research publications is increasing. Staying on top of the state of the art is a pressing issue. The field of Learning Analytics (LA) is no exception, with the rise of digital education systems that are used broadly these days from K12 up to Higher Education. Keeping track of the advances in LA is challenging. This is especially the case for newcomers to the field, as well as for the increasing number of LA units that consult their teachers and scholars on applying evidence-based research outcomes in their lectures. To keep an overview of the rapidly growing research findings on LA, we developed LAxplore, a tool that uses NLP to extract relevant information from the LA literature. In this article, we present the evaluation of…
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Conference: Paper presentation at IC3K 2023

Conference: Paper presentation at IC3K 2023

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Conference, General education, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Learning Design, New Pub, Publication, Technical paper
The purpose of the IC3K is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners on the areas of Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. IC3K is composed of three co-located conferences (KDIR, KEOD and KMIS), each specialized in at least one of the aforementioned main knowledge areas. Our paper titled "LAxplore: An NLP-Based Tool for Distilling Learning Analytics and Learning Design Instruments out of Scientific Publications" was accepted at the 15th International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval (KDIR). Atezaz Ahmad presented the paper at the conference online. ABSTRACT: Each year, the amount of research publications is increasing. Staying on top of the state of the art is a pressing issue. The field of Learning Analytics (LA) is no exception, with the rise of digital education systems that are…
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New Publication: Contextualized Logging of On-Task and Off-Task Behaviours During Learning

New Publication: Contextualized Logging of On-Task and Off-Task Behaviours During Learning

Journal, Open access, Publication, Report, Technical paper
We are happy to announce the publication of our latest research paper that delves into the intricate relationship between digital media usage and the learning experience. The paper addresses key challenges related to monitoring on-task and off-task behavior and suggests innovative solutions for a more effective and ethical study of learners' media habits.Traditionally, researchers have faced a myriad of challenges in accurately gauging how students utilize digital media while learning. Self-reported data often suffer from issues like faulty memory, subjective perceptions, and bias. Understanding whether digital media use enhances or hinders the learning experience is an incredibly complex issue. We identified and addressed four core challenges in logging digital media use during learning: The logging system must only be active during the learning period to capture relevant data. Data collection…
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New Pub: Superpowers in the Classroom: Hyperchalk is an Online Whiteboard for Learning Analytics Data Collection

New Pub: Superpowers in the Classroom: Hyperchalk is an Online Whiteboard for Learning Analytics Data Collection

Computer-supported collaborative learning, Conference, Conference, Event, Further Education, General education, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Lifelong Learning, Publication, School, Technical paper
A new system demonstration paper authored by Lukas Menzel, Sebastian Gombert, Daniele Di Mitri and Henrik Drachsler has been released as part of the ECTEL 2022 proceedings. In this paper, we present Hyperchalk, a self-hosted collaborative online whiteboard software. Similar to commercial solutions like Miro or Flinga, this software provides users with collaborative boards which they can use to draw, write or sketch together. However, unlike commercial solutions, Hyperchalk allows for collecting rich log data, which can be used to study the behaviour of its users and to allow Learning Analytics and studies on computer-supported collaborative learning. Moreover, Hyperchalk comes with a built-in replay mode which allows watching how users behave in its spaces. It supports the LTI1.3 standard, which enables seamless integration with learning management systems such as Moodle,…
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New Pub: Mobile Sensing with Smart Wearables of the Physical Context of Distance Learning Students to Consider Its Effects on Learning

New Pub: Mobile Sensing with Smart Wearables of the Physical Context of Distance Learning Students to Consider Its Effects on Learning

General education, Journal, Learning Analytics, Lifelong Learning, Multimodal Learning Analytics, Open access, Project, Publication, Research topic, Target group, Technical paper
Research shows that various contextual factors can have an impact on learning. Some of these factors can originate from the physical learning environment (PLE) in this regard. When learning from home, learners have to organize their PLE by themselves. This paper is concerned with identifying, measuring, and collecting factors from the PLE that may affect learning using mobile sensing. More specifically, this paper first investigates which factors from the PLE can affect distance learning. The results identify nine types of factors from the PLE associated with cognitive, physiological, and affective effects on learning. Subsequently, this paper examines which instruments can be used to measure the investigated factors. The results highlight several methods involving smart wearables (SWs) to measure these factors from PLEs successfully. Third, this paper explores how software infrastructure…
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Learning Analytics Anwendungen für den Hochschuleinsatz – Eine praxisnahe Übersicht

Learning Analytics Anwendungen für den Hochschuleinsatz – Eine praxisnahe Übersicht

Open access, Project, Publication, Report, Technical paper
Das Forschungsfeld Learning Analytics wächst in den letzten Jahren beständig. Mit dem Wachstum entstanden eine Vielzahl von Technologien und Anwendungen. Diese reichen von der Durchführung von kleinen Machbarkeitsstudien mit innovativen, prototypischen Anwendungen bis hin zu in großen empirischen Studien evaluierten kommerziellen Systemen. Es ist jedoch für potentielle Anwender von Learning Analytics schwierig, die Forschungslandschaft zu überschauen und sich einen Einblick in die Thematik zu verschaffen. Folglich sind viele Hochschulen und Lehrende beim Einsatz von Learning Analytics zögerlich, da alleine ein Überblick über die Möglichkeiten eine hohe Einarbeitungszeit erfordert. Auf Basis des ersten Verhaltenskodex für Trusted Learning Analytics (Hansen, Rensing, Herrmann, Drachsler, 2020), der vom Innovationsforum Trusted Learning Analytics des Projektes: Digital gestütztes Lehren und Lernen in Hessen (digLL) im Januar 2020 veröffentlicht wurde, möchten wir mit diesem Report einen Überblick…
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