Presentation from the Learning Analytics Summer Institute held at Stanford in July 2013

1. Social Learning Analytics:
Discourse Analytics
& Disposition Analytics
Rebecca Ferguson
The Open University, UK

2. Don’t start with the data –
start with the pedagogy
How do people learn?
How can I use big data to facilitate that process?
Social learning analytics:
How do people learn socially & in social settings?
How can I use big data to facilitate that process?

3. Discourse analytics
People construct knowledge through dialogue
The ways in which learners engage in dialogue
indicate how they engage with the ideas of others,
how they relate those ideas to their understanding
and how they explain their own point of view.
• Disputational dialogue
• Cumulative dialogue
• Exploratory dialogue

4. What we are looking for
Category Indicator
Challenge But if, have to respond, my view
Critique However, I’m not sure, maybe
Discussion of resources Have you read, more links
Evaluation Good example, good point
Explanation Means that, our goals
Explicit reasoning Next step, relates to, that’s why
Justification I mean, we learned, we observed
Reflections of
perspectives of others
Agree, here is another, makes the point,
take your point, your view

5. Classifying the discourse
Each colour block represents 10 turns in the dialogue
Red blocks are primarily exploratory, blue blocks primarily non-exploratory

6. Visualising the analytics

7. Dispositions analytics
Shift Happens:
Karl Fisch

8. Disposition analytics
Disposition = a relatively enduring tendency to
behave in a certain way
Focus of disposition
analytics is on malleable
dispositions that are
important for developing
intentional learners, and that
learners can recognise and
develop in themslves

9. Changing and learning
Learning relationships, Creativity
Strategic awareness, Resilience
Meaning making, Critical curiosity
ELLI Spider

10. Learning relationships
Learners who have quality learning relationships
find it useful and exciting to share thoughts and
ideas with others. They make good use of people
as sources of support and guidance, both at
home and in the community. They draw on their
community’s world views and traditions.

11. Analyics driving behaviour
‘The effect of
the installation
on people’s
decision to
take the
elevator or
stairs held at
least over the
eight-week
period of the
study.’
Ambient Influence: Can Twinkly Lights Lure and
Abstract Representations Trigger Behavioral Change?

12. How would you use analytics to support the
development of learning relationships in this
environment?
•What data would you collect?
•How would you analyse it?
•How would you present it to learners?
•What problems would you need to overcome?
Learners who have quality learning relationships find it useful and
exciting to share thoughts and ideas with others. They make good use
of people as sources of support and guidance, both at home and in the
community. They draw on their community’s world views and
traditions.