New Pub: Two Peer Commentaries on Aligning the Goals of Learning Analytics with its Research Scholarship

New Pub: Two Peer Commentaries on Aligning the Goals of Learning Analytics with its Research Scholarship

Commentary, General education, Learning Analytics, Open access
To promote cross-community dialogue on matters of significance within the field of learning analytics (LA), the editors-in-chief of the Journal of Learning Analytics (JLA) have introduced a section for papers that are open to peer commentary. The first submission that was open to peer commentary is “A LAK of Direction: Misalignment Between the Goals of Learning Analytics and its Research Scholarship” by Motz et al. (2023) in which the authors compare the current state of research with the definition of learning analytics by reviewing research published in the past three years in LAK and JLA. Their aim is to answer the question: Is the learning analytics community doing what it set out to do, i.e. understand and optimise learning? Two of the peer commentaries submitted in response to this article are…
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Conference: Demo and paper presentations at EARLI 2023

Conference: Demo and paper presentations at EARLI 2023

Artificial Intelligence, Conference, Feedback, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Self-Regulation, Workshop
This year, the biannual EARLI conference took place between 21-26 August 2023 in Thessaloniki, Greece and EduTec member Ioana Jivet represented DIPF with two contributions. The 1.5-hour ICT demo Closing the Feedback Loop - A Moodle Plugin for (Semi-)automated Feedback introduced participants to the work of PhD student Tornike Giorgashvili, supervised by Hendrik Drachsler and Ioana Jivet, and the outcomes of the HIKOF project: LearnDashPlus, a Moodle plugin which helps teachers provide written feedback in large courses. This tool also prompts students to reflect on the feedback they received and allows teachers to explore if such feedback helps students to understand their learning behavior and improve their learning performance. Our tool is intended to work as an educational intervention and an instrument of dialogue between teachers and students and thus closing…
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Workshop: 5th CARLA Workshop at ECTEL 2023

Workshop: 5th CARLA Workshop at ECTEL 2023

Conference, Learning Analytics, Workshop
The fifth edition of Workshop on Culturally Aware Learning Analytics (CARLA) was organised by Ioana Jivet from Goethe University and DIPF together with Maren Scheffel from Ruhr University Bochum and Olga Viberg from KTH Stockholm. During the workshop, the participants were engaged in discussions around the design of educational technologies and rated the workshop positively. The rationale behind the workshop is that learning analytics (LA) have been implemented in various countries, often at a limited scale. We have also seen that LA have been used in different ways in different countries. This makes the transfer of LA solutions from one country to another challenging, due to varying contextual, technical, and cultural factors. In this workshop, we aim to identify and discuss possible cultural differences and also similarities–the factors that have…
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HyTea Consortium Meeting in Cologne

HyTea Consortium Meeting in Cologne

Artificial Intelligence, Competence development, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Multimodal Learning Analytics, Project, Project meeting
How can software support presentation skills training? How can AI be used responsibly in this context? What to take from traditional presentation skills training and what to do completely different? In the HyTea consortium meeting, we discussed these questions but also many others and took important decisions on what to focus on in the HyTea project. We started preparing the needed knowledge needed for these critical decisions a few months ago when conducting interviews with presentation training experts. We asked them how they train presentation skills, how students should prepare a presentation and how they think AI or technology in general could support in presentation skills training. Furthermore, we also discussed concerns the experts had regarding AI usage in this context. In preparation of the consortium meeting, we synthesized all…
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New pub: Why You Should Give Your Students Automatic Process Feedback on Their Collaboration

New pub: Why You Should Give Your Students Automatic Process Feedback on Their Collaboration

Computer-supported collaborative learning, Conference, Feedback, Higher Education, Journal, Learning Analytics
In the ever-changing landscape of education, innovation is the key to ensuring that every student has access to quality learning experiences. A transformative approach is Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), in which enables students to harness the power of teamwork to achieve learning outcomes that often exceed those they could reach individually. One of the strengths of CSCL is that it can give participant feedback on the quality of their collaborative work. This feedback not only aids individual growth but also enhances the group's overall dynamic. Traditionally, providing such feedback was a manual and time-intensive task, making it impractical for larger classes or scalable education programs. That's where this newly published paper comes into play. CSCL The paper “Why You Should Give Your Students Automatic Process Feedback on Their Collaboration: Evidence…
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Reflecting on the 10th German Learning Analytics Workshop at DELFI 2023: A Decade of Insights and Lessons Introduction

Reflecting on the 10th German Learning Analytics Workshop at DELFI 2023: A Decade of Insights and Lessons Introduction

Conference, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, School, Workshop
On September 11, 2023, the 10th Learning Analytics Workshop took place during the DELFI’23 and HDI’23 conferences in Aachen, Germany. This year marked a special milestone for the workshop as it celebrated "Ten years of learning analytics in German-speaking space: Success, failure and lessons learned." Co-organized by Ioana Jivet and featuring Hendrik Drachsler as a panelist, the workshop aimed to provide a comprehensive platform for sharing experiences, discussing research, and contemplating the future of learning analytics. A decade in review learning analytics has come a long way since its inception. Initially a niche area, it has now become an integral part of e-learning research, gaining prominence at international conferences like LAK and EDM. The recent pandemic-induced digitization in educational institutions has only accelerated this trend, making LA more visible and…
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Podium Royal’s’ Citizen Dialogue: AI – Fantastic Tool or Future Nightmare?

Podium Royal’s’ Citizen Dialogue: AI – Fantastic Tool or Future Nightmare?

Artificial Intelligence, Citizens science, Invited talk, Learning Analytics, Transfer Activity
A Reflective Look at 'Podium Royal's' Citizen Dialogue: AI - Fantastic Tool or Future Nightmare? On 5th September 2023, Heerlen's Royal Cinema had become more than just a movie house. It transformed into a dynamic platform for critical exchange, housing the latest 'Podium Royal.' This monthly meeting place had entertained a lively debate, scrutinizing AI's escalating prominence in our lives. The quaint interiors of the Royal Cinema echoed with the contemplations of concerned citizens. Artificial Intelligence or AI's omnipresence was the crux of the discussion. Visible in everyday activities, from supermarket self-scanners to self-driving cars, from online shopping algorithms to medical software detecting breast cancer – the omnipresence of AI was universally acknowledged. But this prevalence has also raised several unsettling thoughts - are we aligning with more totalitarian governments…
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Dr. Eyal Rabin from the Open University of Israel joins EduTec group and GU as an International Visiting Fellow

Dr. Eyal Rabin from the Open University of Israel joins EduTec group and GU as an International Visiting Fellow

Computational Psychometrics, Learning Analytics, Research Methods
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Eyal Rabin, a distinguished researcher in the field of educational technology, has joined us as an International Visiting Fellow at the EduTec group at DIPF and Goethe University in Frankfurt from July till September. This fellowship is generously funded by the Goethe University and aims to foster collaborative research and knowledge exchange in the field of educational technology. Dr. Rabin serves as a research associate at the Center of Innovation in Educational Technology at the Open University of Israel. His research expertise lies in exploring the complexities of learning in online courses and digital environments, employing learning analytics methods (LA) and drawing from multiple interdisciplinary fields, including psychology, education and computer science. The focus of Dr. Rabin's research revolves around understanding the factors…
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Workshops and tutorials at LASI2023 in Singapore

Workshops and tutorials at LASI2023 in Singapore

Feedback, Learning Analytics, Summer School, Workshop
During 6-8 June 2023, Ioana Jivet participated in the first in-person Learning Analytics Summer Institute (LASI) since 2019, hosted by the National University of Singapore (NUS). The event included a keynote delivered by NUS President Prof. Tan Eng Chye on how NUS is supporting education with educational data, a keynote delivered by Prof. Rebecca Ferguson on the current challenges and opportunities of the field of learning analytics (LA), an expert panel discussing the role of LA in the age of AI and a series of tutorials and workshops conducted by various professionals in the field of LA. As part of the program, Ioana Jivet led a 5.5-hour workshop and a 2-hour tutorial focusing on effective dashboard design, data visualization, and sense-making. The workshop "Effective Dashboard Design and Data Visualization for…
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Workshop: Teacher Dashboards supported by AI-generated Feedback @ JTEL Summer School 2023

Workshop: Teacher Dashboards supported by AI-generated Feedback @ JTEL Summer School 2023

Learning Analytics, School, Summer School, Workshop
At the JTEL Summer School 2023 in La Manga, Spain, we hosted the “Teacher Dashboards supported by AI-generated Feedback” workshop. In this workshop, the Learning Analytics Cockpit (LA Cockpit), a tool developed by us, was presented and optimized by the participants. The LA Cockpit is a teacher dashboard that allows teachers to view the learning status of students through different visualizations and to interact with these visualizations to send feedback to (individual or groups of) students through a feedback system to “steer" the learning process. After a short intro on teacher dashboards and feedback theory, the tool with its visual feedback system was be tested "hands-on" by all participants in the workshop. Afterwards we discussed on how to improve the LA Cockpit and for which purposes teachers would ideally use…
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