Efforts in Europe for data-driven improvement of education : A review of learning analytics research in seven countries

Information and communication technologies are increasingly mediating learning and teaching practices as well as how educational institutions are handling their administrative work. As such, students and teachers are leaving large amounts of digital footprints and traces in various educational apps and learning management platforms, and educational administrators register various processes and outcomes in digital administrative systems. It is against such a background we in recent years have seen the emergence of the fast-growing and multi-disciplinary field of learning analytics. In this paper, we examine the research efforts that have been conducted in the field of learning analytics in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. More specifically, we report on developed national policies, infrastructures and competence centers, as well as major research projects and developed research strands within the selected countries. The main conclusions of this paper are that the work of researchers around Europe has not led to national adoption or European level strategies for learning analytics. Furthermore, most countries have not established national policies for learners’ data or guidelines that govern the ethical usage of data in research or education. We also conclude, that learning analytics research on pre-university level to high extent have been overlooked. In the same vein, learning analytics has not received enough focus form national and European national bodies. Such funding is necessary for taking steps towards data-driven development of education

What Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Stakeholders Can Learn from Learning Analytics?

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are the road that led to a revolution and a new era of learning environments. Educational institutions have come under pressure to adopt new models that assure openness in their education distribution. Nonetheless, there is still altercation about the pedagogical approach and the absolute information delivery to the students. On the other side with the use of Learning Analytics, powerful tools become available which mainly aim to enhance learning and improve learners performance. In this chapter, the development phases of a Learning Analytics prototype and the experiment of integrating it into a MOOC platform, called iMooX will be presented. This chapter explores how MOOC Stakeholders may benefit from Learning Analytics as well as it reports an exploratory analysis of some of the offered courses and demonstrate use cases as a typical evaluation of this prototype in order to discover hidden patterns, overture future proper decisions and to optimize learning with applicable and convenient interventions.Comment: Learning, Design, and Technology, Springer International Publishing. (pp. 1-30) (2016