Digital communities: context for leading learning into the future?

In 2011, a robust, on-campus, three-element Community of Practice model consisting of growing community, sharing of practice and building domain knowledge was piloted in a digital learning environment. An interim evaluation of the pilot study revealed that the three-element framework, when used in a digital environment, required a fourth element. This element, which appears to happen incidentally in the face-to-face context, is that of reflecting, reporting and revising. This paper outlines the extension of the pilot study to the national tertiary education context in order to explore the implications for the design, leadership roles, and selection of appropriate technologies to support and sustain digital communities using the four-element model

Practitioner Track Proceedings of the 6th International Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference (LAK16)

Practitioners spearhead a significant portion of learning analytics, relying on implementation and experimentation rather than on traditional academic research. Both approaches help to improve the state of the art. The LAK conference has created a practitioner track for submissions, which first ran in 2015 as an alternative to the researcher track. The primary goal of the practitioner track is to share thoughts and findings that stem from learning analytics project implementations. While both large and small implementations are considered, all practitioner track submissions are required to relate to initiatives that are designed for large-scale and/or long-term use (as opposed to research-focused initiatives). Other guidelines include: • Implementation track record The project should have been used by an institution or have been deployed on a learning site. There are no hard guidelines about user numbers or how long the project has been running. • Learning/education related Submissions have to describe work that addresses learning/academic analytics, either at an educational institution or in an area (such as corporate training, health care or informal learning) where the goal is to improve the learning environment or learning outcomes. • Institutional involvement Neither submissions nor presentations have to include a named person from an academic institution. However, all submissions have to include information collected from people who have used the tool or initiative in a learning environment (such as faculty, students, administrators and trainees). • No sales pitches While submissions from commercial suppliers are welcome; reviewers do not accept overt (or covert) sales pitches. Reviewers look for evidence that a presentation will take into account challenges faced, problems that have arisen, and/or user feedback that needs to be addressed. Submissions are limited to 1,200 words, including an abstract, a summary of deployment with end users, and a full description. Most papers in the proceedings are therefore short, and often informal, although some authors chose to extend their papers once they had been accepted. Papers accepted in 2016 fell into two categories. • Practitioner Presentations Presentation sessions are designed to focus on deployment of a single learning analytics tool or initiative. • Technology Showcase The Technology Showcase event enables practitioners to demonstrate new and emerging learning analytics technologies that they are piloting or deploying. Both types of paper are included in these proceedings

Study of the flexibility of a learning analytics tool to evaluate teamwork competence acquisition in different contexts

Learning analytics tools and methodologies aim to facilitate teachers and/or decision makers with information and knowledge about what is happening in virtual learning environments in a straightforward and effortless way. However, it is necessary to apply these tools and methodologies in different contexts with a similar success, that is, that they should be flexible and portable enough. There exist several learning analytics tools that only works properly with very specific versions of learning platforms. In this paper, the authors aim to evaluate the flexibility and portability of a methodology and a learning analytics tool that supports individual assessment of teamwork competence. In order to do so the methodology and the tool are applied in a similar course from two different academic contexts. After the experiment, it is possible to see that the learning analytics tool seems to work properly and the suggested new functionalities are similar in both contexts. The methodology can be also applied but results could be improved if some meetings are carried out to check how team works are progressing with their tasks

Student engagement in virtual space

In this paper, a university course (subject or unit of study) that currently enjoys positive formal student reviews is used as a case study to demonstrate how theoretical knowledge about student engagement is effectively put into practice. This investigation identifies key aspects that have contributed to the positive student feedback with particular emphasis on student engagement online, or in virtual space. The investigation involves identifying what is considered good practice with respect to student engagement and then benchmarking the case study course against this. A key contribution of this paper is the presentation of practical examples demonstrating how the current theory is effectively realised in practice. The conclusion was that the course complied with key elements of what is considered good practice and successfully engaged students. Other practitioners may use the examples in their own context to help inform the practice of engaging students when teaching in virtual space

An enhanced learning analytics plugin for Moodle: Student engagement and personalised intervention

© ASCILITE 2015 - Australasian Society for Computers in Learning and Tertiary Education, Conference Proceedings.All right reserved. Moodle, an open source Learning Management System (LMS), collects a large amount of data on student interactions within it, including content, assessments, and communication. Some of these data can be used as proxy indicators of student engagement, as well as predictors for performance. However, these data are difficult to interrogate and even more difficult to action from within Moodle. We therefore describe a design-based research narrative to develop an enhanced version of an open source Moodle Engagement Analytics Plugin (MEAP). Working with the needs of unit convenors and student support staff, we sought to improve the available information, the way it is represented, and create affordances for action based on this. The enhanced MEAP (MEAP+) allows analyses of gradebook data, assessment submissions, login metrics, and forum interactions, as well as direct action through personalised emails to students based on these analyses

The Identified Informal Learner: Recognizing Assessed Learning in the Open

Badged open courses (BOCs) were piloted on the OpenLearn platform by the Open University (OU) in the UK in 2013. These are free online course upon the completion of which, digital badges are awarded. Based on the evaluation of their impact, they now form a key strand to the OU’s free learning provision, embracing Open Educational Practices at their core. The first permanent suite of BOCs was launched on OpenLearn in 2015 and evaluated for impact, both from an outreach and a business perspective. The application of a branded open digital badge, with associated assessment and feedback has provided a mechanism to motivate and reward informal learners whilst also generating a higher than expected click-through to make an enquiry about becoming a formal student

Using moodle analytics for continuous e-assessment in a financial mathematics course at Polytechnic of Porto

The relevance of electronic learning, commonly called e-learning, has been growing exponentially in the last decade. Virtual learning environments (VLEs) disclosed new paths for interactions and motivation promotion, offering basic learning analytics functions and are becoming progressively popular. Moodle (acronym for Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is one of the most used VLEs, it is a free learning management system distributed as Open Source. The VLE Moodle gives professors access to an “endless” use and performance database like the number of downloads for each resource, participation of students in courses, statistics of performed quizzes, among others. The data stored by Moodle offers a good and handy source for learning analytics. One popular definition, from the First International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge in 2011, states that “Learning Analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about students and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs”. Thus, using appropriate learning analytics methods and techniques, it would be helpful to analyze what particular learning activities or tools were practically used by students in Moodle, and to what extent. Considering the importance of the student engagement and the benefits of continuous assessment in higher education, as well as the impact of information and communications technology (ICT) on educational processes, it is important to integrate technology into continuous assessment practices. Since student engagement is connected to the quality of the student experience, increasing it is one way of enhancing quality in a higher education institution. In this study, will be demonstrated how the use of several educational resources and a low-stakes continuous weekly e-assessment in Moodle had a positive influence on student engagement in a second year undergraduate Financial Mathematics Course. Students felt that their increased engagement and improved learning was a straight result of this method. Furthermore, this suggests that wisely planned assignments and assessments can be used to increase student engagement and learning, and, as a result, contribute to improving the quality of student experience and success.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio