News – EduTec Science

May212020 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

Learning analytics in European higher education–trends and barriers

Publication, Study — May 21, 2020

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…

May122020 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

Towards Computational Psychometrics by Combining Psychometrics with Learning Analytics

Publication — May 12, 2020

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,…

May122020 by George Ciordas-HertelNo Comments

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

Award, Conference, Publication — May 12, 2020

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.…

Apr152020 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

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

open access, Publication, Study — April 15, 2020

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…

Apr22020 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

10 critical steps to rock your ONLINE conference

Digitalisation — April 2, 2020

Reflections on the 1st fully online Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK) conference Authors: Nina Seidenberg, Grace Lynch, Nicole Hoover, Maren Scheffel, Vitomir Kovanović and Hendrik Drachsler In March 2020, the Learning Analytics Community planned to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Learning Analytics & Knowledge conference (LAK20) with an outstanding community gathering in Frankfurt, Germany, at the beautiful Campus Westend of Goethe University Frankfurt at the river Main. Everyone was looking forward to celebrating the many accomplishments of this supportive community and hosting everyone in person in Frankfurt. The conference registered close to 600 individual attendees for the main conference, a record number for the face-to-face event of the year. https://twitter.com/lak20frankfurt/status/1243577234939613184?s=20 Unfortunately, the COVID-19 virus outbreak changed the situation rapidly. New international travel bans were enacted, numerous universities took preventive…

Mar312020 by Sebastian WollnyNo Comments

LAK20: Chatbots – An Opportunity for Individual Assistance in Education

Uncategorized — March 31, 2020

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

Mar302020 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

Radio Beitrag zu Online Konferenzen bei Campus & Karriere

Conference, Digitalisation — March 30, 2020

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…

Mar282020 by Atezaz AhmadNo Comments

Best Poster Award at LAK20

Award, Conference, Project, Publication — March 28, 2020

Atezaz Ahmad, Jan Schneider, and Hendrik Drachsler won the best poster award at the 10th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK) Conference for Open Learning Analytics Indicator Repository (OpenLAIR).

Mar282020 by Atezaz AhmadNo Comments

Open Learning Analytics Indicator Repository (OpenLAIR)

open access, Publication, Study — March 28, 2020

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…

Mar272020 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

Fellowship Of The Learning Activity Learning Analytics (FoLA2)

Game, open access, Project, Workshop — March 27, 2020

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…