Big Data Reference Architecture for e-Learning Analytical Systems

The recent advancements in technology have produced big data and become the necessity for researcher to analyze the data in order to make it meaningful. Massive amounts of data are collected across social media sites, mobile communications, business environments and institutions. In order to efficiently analyze this large quantity of raw data, the concept of big data was introduced. In this regard, big data analytic is needed in order to provide techniques to analyze the data. This new concept is expected to help education in the near future, by changing the way we approach the e-Learning process, by encouraging the interaction between learners and teachers, by allowing the fulfilment of the individual requirements and goals of learners. The learning environment generates massive knowledge by means of the various services provided in massive open online courses. Such knowledge is produced via learning actor interactions. Also, data analytics can be a valuable tool to help e-Learning organizations deliver better services to the public. It can provide important insights into consumer behavior and better predict demand for goods and services, thereby allowing for better resource management. This result motivates to put forward solutions for big data usage to the educational field. This research article unfolds a big data reference architecture for e-Learning analytical systems to make a unified analysis of the massive data generated by learning actors. This reference architecture makes the process of the massive data produced in big data e-learning system. Finally, the BiDRA for e-Learning analytical systems was evaluated based on the quality of maintainability, modularity, reusability, performance, and scalability

Learning analytics visualizations of student-activity time distribution for the open Edx platform

MOOCs are one of the current trending topics in educational technology. They surged with the vision of a democratization in education worldwide by removing some access barriers. As every technology, MOOCs have promoters and detractors but truth is, they are an invaluable source of data related to student interaction with courses and their resources as has been available never before. This data is susceptible to shed light on the learning process in this online environment and potentially in uence in a positive way the learning outcomes. Students can be presented with visual, friendly information that enable them to re ect on their performance and gain awareness of their own learning style based on data beyond intuition. Teachers can be given the same metrics augmented with student aggregates for their courses. Thus, they can tune their pedagogical approach and resource quality for the better. In this context, Open edX is one of the most prominent MOOC platforms. However, its learning analytics support is low at present. This project extends the learning analytics support of the Open edX platform by adding new six visualizations related to time on video and problem modules, namely: 1) video time watched, 2) video and 3) problem time distributions, 4) video repetition pro le, 5) daily time on video and problem and 6) distribution of video events. The main technologies used have been Python, Django, MySQL, JavaScript, Google Charts and MongoDBLos MOOCs están de moda en lo que se refiere a tecnología educativa. Surgieron con la visión de remover algunas barreras de acceso en aras de la democratización de la educación en cada rincón del mundo. Como toda tecnología, tienen sus promotores y detractores, pero lo cierto es que constituyen una valiosa fuente de datos como no ha habido antes en lo que respecta a la interacción de los estudiantes con estos cursos y sus recursos. Estos datos pueden ayudarnos a entender el proceso de aprendizaje en estos entornos. Tienen además el potencial de in uir positivamente en los resultados del aprendizaje. Se puede presentar a los estudiantes una información visual fácil de entender, que les permita re exionar sobre su rendimiento y ganar conciencia de su estilo de aprendizaje a partir de los datos, más allá de lo que les pueda indicar la intuición. Las mismas métricas se pueden poner a disponibilidad de los profesores, en conjunto con valores agregados de la clase. De esta manera, los profesores pueden ajustar el enfoque pedagógico del curso y mejorar la calidad de los recursos. En este contexto, Open edX es una de las plataformas proveedoras de MOOCs más prominentes. Sin embargo, tiene todavía poco soporte para analitica del aprendizaje. Este proyecto extiende ese soporte al incorporar seis visualizaciones nuevas sobre tiempo en vídeos y problemas, especícamente: 1) tiempo visto de vídeos, distribución de tiempo en 2) vídeos y 3) problemas, 4) peril de repetición de vídeo, 5) tiempo diario en vídeos y problemas y 6) distribuci on de eventos de vídeo. Las principales tecnologías usadas son: Python, Django, MySQL, JavaScript, Google Charts y MongoDB.Ingeniería de Telecomunicació

Designing online conferences to promote professional development in Africa

Online conferences have become an increasingly well accepted mode of delivery and interaction for professional development processes. This is partly driven by changing online conference designs, improved bandwidth and increasing takeup of internet services globally. The growth of online conferences is also in part a response to the travel costs, security fears, and ecological impacts related to traditional face to face conferences.. The e/merge online conference series on the use of educational technology in Africa is an example of how online conferences can enhance professional networking and development of practitioners and researchers. Such conferences can bring together professionals with shared practices, facilitate learning at the boundaries of overlapping communities of practice and bring African and global experiences into a shared conversation about new opportunities and local contexts

Identifying good practices in information literacy education; creating a multi-lingual, multi-cultural MOOC

This presentation reports an analysis of good practices in information literacy (IL) education, with particular reference to practices which may be incorporated in the design on a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Based on an analysis of published literature and reports, analysis of existing IL MOOCs, and expert opinion, it presents good practice eleven area: IL definition and models; IL content and contexts; pedagogical frameworks; teaching and learning methods; interaction and collaboration by learners; structuring of learning materials; assessment methods; multi-lingual and multi-cultural aspects; IL outside higher education; MOOC management; and MOOCs in LIS and IL

Remix as Professional Learning: Educators’ Iterative Literacy Practice in CLMOOC

The Connected Learning Massive Open Online Collaboration (CLMOOC) is an online professional development experience designed as an openly networked, production-centered, participatory learning collaboration for educators. Addressing the paucity of research that investigates learning processes in MOOC experiences, this paper examines the situated literacy practices that emerged as educators in CLMOOC composed, collaborated, and distributed multimediated artifacts. Using a collaborative, interactive visual mapping tool as participant-researchers, we analyzed relationships between publically available artifacts and posts generated in one week through a transliteracies framework. Culled data included posts on Twitter (n = 678), a Google+ Community (n = 105), a Facebook Group (n = 19), a blog feed (n = 5), and a “make� repository (n = 21). Remix was found to be a primary form of interaction and mediator of learning. Participants not only iterated on each others’ artifacts, but on social processes and shared practices as well. Our analysis illuminated four distinct remix mobilities and relational tendencies—bursting, drifting, leveraging, and turning. Bursting and drifting characterize the paces and proximities of remixing while leveraging and turning are activities more obviously disruptive of social processes and power hierarchies. These mobilities and tendencies revealed remix as an emergent, iterative, collaborative, critical practice with transformative possibilities for openly networked web-mediated professional learning.ECU Open Access Publishing Support Fun

Fruits of Gregory Bateson’s epistemological crisis: embodied mind-making and interactive experience in research and professional praxis

Background: The espoused rationale for this special issue, situated “at the margins of cybernetics,” was to revisit and extend the common genealogy of cybernetics and communication studies. Two possible topics garnered our attention: 1) the history of intellectual adventurers whose work has appropriated cybernetic concepts; and 2) the remediation of cybernetic metaphors. Analysis: A heuristic for engaging in first- and second-order R&D praxis, the design of which was informed by co-research with pastoralists (1989–1993) and the authors’ engagements with the scholarship of Bateson and Maturana, was employed and adapted as a reflexive in-quiry framework.Conclusion and implications: This inquiry challenges the mainstream desire for change and the belief in getting the communication right in order to achieve change. The authors argue this view is based on an epistemological error that continues to produce the very problems it intends to diminish, and thus we live a fundamental error in epistemology, false ontology, and misplaced practice. The authors offer instead conceptual and praxis possibilities for triggering new co-evolutionary trajectories

Analyzing navigation logs in MOOC: A case study

Continued use of various technological devices has massively increased the generation of digital data, which are recorded as an opportunity for research. In the educational case, it is common to analyze data generated in Learning Management Systems which allows better understand the learning process of the participants and make informed decisions for better e-learning processes and situations in which develop. This paper analyzes participants’ navigation logs in a MOOC hosted on the Coursera platform, for which a visual e-learning analytics process was performed. The results confirm that the videos of experts are an essential educational resource for learning in a MOOC, similarly, the discussion forums are an important resource which are recurrent social spaces in different navigation paths complementing other activities