9. ACADEMIC
ANALYTICS
How can we
substantially improve
learning opportunities
and educational results
[at national or
international levels]?
Information for
• administrators
• funders
• marketing
• education
authorities
• governments
A political challenge
10. EDUCATIONAL
DATA MINING
How can we extract
value from these big
sets of learning-related
data?
an emerging
discipline,
concerned with
developing
methods for
exploring the
unique types of
data that come
from educational
settings, and using
those methods to
better understand
students, and the
settings in which
they learn.
A technical challenge
12. LEARNING
ANALYTICS
How can we optimise
opportunities for
[online and blended]
learning?
Information for
• learners
• educators
An educational challenge
15. Learning analytics help us to
identify and make sense
of patterns in the data
to improve our teaching,
our learning and
our learning environments.
16.
17.
18.
19. Priority 1: Fostering the
development of a high-
performing digital
education ecosystem
Priority 2: Enhancing
digital skills and
competences for the
digital transformation
EU PRIORITY
AREAS FOR
DIGITAL
EDUCATION
20. The National
University of
Singapore
aspires to be a
vital community
of academics,
researchers,
staff, students
and alumni
working together
in a spirit of
innovation and
enterprise for a
better world.
24. H
Breakout discussion
Which aspects of
teaching and learning
are you currently trying
to optimise? Which
would you like to
optimise?
Where is your work
situated in the learning
analytics cycle?
26. EP4LA workshops
LACE provocations
JLA special issue 3:1 2016
Neil Selwyn keynote LAK 2019
JLA special issue
6:3 2019
Ongoing work 2023
DEVELOPING THE
SIX CHALLENGES
27. Use data and
analytics
whenever they
can contribute to
learner success,
ensuring that the
analytics take into
account all that is
known about
learning and
teaching.
If you could have
any superpowers
you wanted, to
help you do your
job, what would
they be?
Challenge one: duty to act
learning-analytics.info/index.php/JLA/issue/view/463
28. Equip learners
and educators
with data literacy
skills, so they are
sufficiently
informed to give
or withhold
consent to the
use of data and
analytics.
Challenge two: informed consent
[Amazon] is in a position to
collect huge amounts of data –
through its shopping platform, but
also through its Ring cameras,
Alexa voice assistants, web
services, delivery services,
streaming services, and its many
other business streams.
[Whole Foods, PillPack, Twitch,
IMDb, Roomba…]
Sara Nelson, Privacy International
www.wired.co.uk/article/amazon-history-data
29. H
What are data literacy
skills?
What do people need
to know to:
• read data
• work with data
• analyse data
• argue with data
• give informed consent?
Breakout discussion
30. Take a proactive
approach to
safeguarding in
an increasingly
data-driven
society,
identifying
potential risks,
and taking action
to limit them.
Challenge three: safeguarding
Data may be:
• inaccurate
• mislabelled
• mistyped
• misused
• incomplete
• poorly chosen
• biased sample
• out of date
• poorly protected
• subject to attack
• ignored
31. Work towards
increased equality
and justice,
expanding
awareness of
ways in which
analytics have the
potential to
increase or
decrease these.
Challenge four: equality and justice
Facebook screenshot by Lauren F Klein
34. 1. Use data and analytics whenever they can contribute to learner success,
ensuring that the analytics take into account all that is known about
learning and teaching
2. Equip learners and educators with data literacy skills, so they are
sufficiently informed to give or withhold consent to the use of data and
analytics.
3. Take a proactive approach to safeguarding in an increasingly data-driven
society, identifying potential risks, and taking action to limit them.
4. Work towards increased equality and justice, expanding awareness of
ways in which analytics have the potential to increase or decrease
these.
5. Increase understanding of the value, ownership, and control of data.
6. Increase the agency of learners and educators in relation to the use and
understanding of educational data
The six challenges
36. H
What are your current
plans for impact?
Who needs to know
about your work? How
are you making sure
you reach those
people?
What will you do next
to achieve impact?
Breakout discussion
Title slide
Introduction to learning analytics
Rebecca Ferguson, The Open University, UK
Divider slide, introducing the question ‘Who?’ and asking ‘Who is in the learning analytics community?’
Picture taken at LASI 2019, held at the University of British Columbia.
Used to introduce the Learning Analytics Summer Institutes and also LASI locals that take place around the world
International Women’s Day: Learning Analytics and Knowledge 2019 (LAK19) in Arizona brought together the women in the community who were attending the conference.
Picture of the online Human-centred learning analytics (HCLA) workshop at LAK23 from this URL https://twitter.com/RobertoResearch/status/1635380182034046981/photo/1
Image of audience at LAK 2023 in Austin, Texas, and of hybridSoLAR AGM from Bart Rienties
A set of pictures of 12 members of the current executive of the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) with the current President, Bart Rienties, at the top left.
The cover of the most recent Journal of Learning Analytics Research (10:1) with a list of recent special sections of the journal
Participants in the last LASI before 2023 to be held in a physical location, which took place in Vancouver in 2019. Workshop participants are asked to introduce themselves and to say how they feel about LASI
A divider slide introducing the question ‘What?’ and asking, ‘What are learning analytics?’
Introducing academic analytics. These provide information for administrators, funders, marketing departments, education authoritieis and governments. They address the political challenge, ‘How can we substantially improve learning opportunities and educational results [at national or international levels]? ‘
Introducing educational data mining, which describes itself as ‘an emerging discipline, concerned with developing methods for exploring the unique types of data that come from educational settings, and using those methods to better understand students, and the settings in which they learn.’ It addresses a technical challenge: How can we extract value from these big sets of learning-related data?
Enforcement (such as proctoring and TurnItIn) also makes use of data in an educational setting and the criticisms of enforcement are often extended to learning analytics. It deals with the question ‘How can we make sure our students turn up, engage, and don’t cheat?’. The two images relate to ways in which learners are forced to become data, rather than the data they generate during their activities being used to support them.
The slide includes a Tweet from Mark Tenholtz posted on 17 May 2023 that says: ‘A professor failed their entire class because they used ChatGPT to write their essays. (or so he thought) What he *actually* did was paste each essay into ChatGPT (or as he called it, ChatGTP) and ask it if it wrote the essay. The pendulum swing we all anticipated.’
The other image is of a Tweeet by quantified (br)other @hypervisible that refers to a Black woman having to shine a bright light on her face during an entire two-day exam so the remote monitoring technology did not flag her as a cheater.
Learning analytics produces information for educators and learners. It addresses an educational challenge: How can we optimise opportunities for [online and blended] learning?
The SoLAR definition of learning analytics ‘The measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs.’
Divider introducing the question ‘why?’ and asking, ‘Why learning analytics?’
A rephrasing of the definition of learning analytics: ‘Learning analytics help us to identify and make sense of patterns in the data to improve our teaching, our learning and our learning environments.’
A definition of education taken from Twitter, where it was shared by Dr Kevin Smith. It quotes Chris Hedges as saying: ‘the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers’.
Another definition of education, provided by Ofsted, the UK’s Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, and shared on Twitter by Paul Hopkins. It states that ‘The aim of education is to deliver a high-quality curriculum so that pupils know more and remember more.’. Paul draws attention to gaps in this definition, such as love of learning and application of learning.
A third definition of education from Twittter, this time from Dylan William. He identifies four broad puroses for education: personal empowerment, transmission of culture, preparation for democratic citizenship, and preparation for work.
European Union’s current priority area for digital education, taken from https://education.ec.europa.eu/focus-topics/digital-education/action-plan
Priority 1: Fostering the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem
Priority 2: Enhancing digital skills and competences for the digital transformation
The National University of Singapore’s vision, as stated at https://nus.edu.sg/about
The National University of Singapore aspires to be a vital community of academics, researchers, staff, students and alumni working together in a spirit of innovation and enterprise for a better world.
The image shows the university’s logo: a lion in a shield with a book and three interlinked rings above it
Part of the educational vision of the University of British Columbia, taken from its website. It refers to the university’s values, which include: excellence, integrity, and respect.
The UBC values statement can be accessed here https://www.ubc.ca/about/vision-values.html
Divider slide introducing the question ‘Where?’ and asking, ‘Where does my work fit in?’
The Learning Analytics Cycle, introduced by Doug Clow in a paper at LAK12. The cycle links learners, data, metrics and interventions. A URL gives a link to the paper.
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2330601.2330636
Instructions for the breakout discussion. Which aspects of teaching and learning are you currently trying to optimise? Which aspects of teaching and learning would you like to optimise?
Divider slide introducing the question ‘How” and asking, ‘How do we move forward?’
An explanation of how the six challenges on the following slides were developed. Ideas were gathered from a series of workshops on Ethics and Privacy in Learning Analytics (EP4LA), which were held in many countries from 2014 onwards. Other ideas came from a piece of research carried out by the Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) which used a set of ten provocations to present participants with views of how learning analytics might develop in the coming decade and asked for thoughts on the feasibility and desirability of these various outcomes. These ideas were brought together in an issue of the Journal of Learning Analytics in 2016, which identified a set of challenges for the field that related to ethical issues. A keynote by Neil Selwyn at LAK 2019 introduced new ideas, which were incorporated within a revised set of challenges published in the Journal of Learning Analytics in 2019. When these slides were produced in May 2023, the paper had been cited 53 times, according to Google Scholar.
Challenge on is the duty to act. ‘Use data and analytics whenever they can contribute to learner success, ensuring that the analytics take into account all that is known about learning and teaching.’. This is associated with user-centred design, and with an approach to this that was published in the Journal of Learning Analytics. Researchers asked educators ‘If you could have any superpowers you wanted, to help you do your job, what would they be?. A URL is provided for the paper learning-analytics.info/index.php/JLA/issue/view/463
Challenge 2 is informed consent. Equip learners and educators with data literacy skills, so they are sufficiently informed to give or withhold consent to the use of data and analytics. A link is made to a recent quote from Sara Nelson, published in Wired magazine: ‘[Amazon] is in a position to collect huge amounts of data – through its shopping platform, but also through its Ring cameras, Alexa voice assistants, web services, delivery services, streaming services, and its many other business streams.’ A link is provided to the article. www.wired.co.uk/article/amazon-history-data
Rebecca has added some of the other companies owned by Amazon: Whole Food, PillPack, Twitch, IMDb and Roomba.
Instructions for a breakout discussion. What are data literacy skills? What do people need to know to read data, work with data, analyse data, argue with data, and give informed consent?
Challenge three: safeguarding. Take a proactive approach to safeguarding in an increasingly data-driven society, identifying potential risks, and taking action to limit them. Links are made here to two aspects of safeguarding. One is a news story from 2020 in which the University of Maastricht states it paid a large ransom to hackers. [More information about ransomware attacks on Higher Education is available at https://www.csoonline.com/article/3690413/universities-and-colleges-cope-silently-with-ransomware-attacks.html ]The other is a tweet by Karen Triquet which refers to biased algorithms, biased data, and the human bias that underpins these. A list of potential problems with data notes it may be inaccurate, mislabelled, mistyped, misused, incomplete, poorly chosen biased sample, out of date, poorly protected, subject to attack, or ignored.
Challenge four: equality and justice, Work towards increased equality and justice, expanding awareness of ways in which analytics have the potential to increase or decrease these. The image here is from a screenshot of FaceBook taken by Lauren F Klein. It shows a series of options for the category ‘gender’ including Gender Fluid, Gender Variant, Genderqueet, Gender Questioning, Gender Nonconforming, Agender, Bigender, Cisgender, Cisgender Female, and Cisgender Male.
Challenge five: data ownership. Increase understanding of the value, ownership, and control of data. The image is taken from a comic-book representation of Apples’ terms and conditions for iTunes. There is a link to the book https://www.rsikoryak.com/masterpiece-comics-1
The 2787-word UK English version of Apple’s terms and conditions, which includes the quoted text, is available here https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/internet-services/itunes/volume/uk/terms.html
Challenge six: integrity of self. Increase the agency of learners and educators in relation to the use and understanding of educational data. This is related to a CBS news story shared on Twitter by John Wilander, referring to a lawsuit that alleges Google secretly monitors millions of school children. There are also five images of Rebecca, representing different parts of her digital identity, including avatars, and a cartoon-like mii character.
All six challenges are given in full.
Use data and analytics whenever they can contribute to learner success, ensuring that the analytics take into account all that is known about learning and teaching
Equip learners and educators with data literacy skills, so they are sufficiently informed to give or withhold consent to the use of data and analytics.
Take a proactive approach to safeguarding in an increasingly data-driven society, identifying potential risks, and taking action to limit them.
Work towards increased equality and justice, expanding awareness of ways in which analytics have the potential to increase or decrease these.
Increase understanding of the value, ownership, and control of data.
Increase the agency of learners and educators in relation to the use and understanding of educational data
Pathways to impact. Some were mentioned on the previous slide: workshops, conferences, publications, stakeholder engagement, and resources that can be shared and used. Other options include a website, social media (videos, pictures and text), roadshows or other events, open educational resources. Most important – have a strategy for impact.
Questions for a breakout discussion
What are your current plans for impact?
Who needs to know about your work? How are you making sure you reach those people?
What will you do next to achieve impact?
Contact details for Rebecca Ferguson, including Slideshare, Twitter and her blog, plus a photograph and an illustration of her.
The three URLs are:
slideshare.net/R3beccaF
r3beccaf.wordpress.com/
twitter.com/R3beccaF