2015-05-13 research-seminar

1. Learning Analytics
Current Stand and Perspectives in IFI
Kairit Tammets
13th May, 2015

2. Background – how did I meet LA
• I met EMMA:
– LA for supporting facilitators and learners;
– LA analyzing MOOC experience and usage of EMMA;
– xAPI standard and Learning Record Store;
– Collaboration with three developer teams between
Italy and Estonia
• I met HoTEL project (Holistic Approach to
Technology Enhanced Learning) – expert meeting
in London March 2014;
• I met LACE project

3. LACE
• LACE – Learning Analytics Community
Exchange
• EU funded community building project;
• Aims:
– Promote knowledge creation and exchange of LA;
– Increase the evidence base;
– Contribute to the definition of future directions;
– Build consensus on interoperability and data
sharing

4. LACE partners
• Partners:
– Open Universiteit Nederland, NL;
– Cetis, the Centre for Educational Technology and
Interoperability Standards at the University of Bolton, UK;
– Institute for Educational Technology at the Open University, UK;
– Infinity Technology Solutions, IT;
– Skolverket, the Swedish National Agency for Education, SE;
– Kennisnet, NL;
– Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus, NO;
– ATiT, Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics and
Telecommunications, BE;
– EDEN, the European Distance Education Network, UK
• TLU: Associated partner (around 40 associated partners)

5. Joint actions with LACE
• Learning analytics Summer Institute, Utrecht;
• Learning Analytics Data Sharing Workshop @ EcTel
conference, Graz 2014;
• Open Learning Analytics Network - Summit, Amsterdam,
December 2014;
• LAK15 presentation – European perspective of LA;
• LACE briefing on learning analytics, Brussels, April 2015;
• Eramus+ PiPA (Privacy in Policy & Action) – not submitted
because of the bureaucracy;
• COST Action proposal;
• Contribution to their deliverable on Data sharing in LA;

6. Learning Analytics Summer Institute,
Utrecht (1)
• Stefan Mol and Gábor Kismihók from the
University of Amsterdam:
– practical experience with xAPI and Learning Record
Store (developing own LRS, not using existing one);
– experiences with LA tools (UvA Mirror (Coach), qDNA)
– data is everywhere, but accessibility is the issue and
legal and ethical issues are on the agenda;
– In Netherlands the LA is national level important
direction and funds are available for the R&D activities
.

7. Learning Analytics Summer Institute,
Utrecht (2)
• Hendrik Draschler and Maren Scheffel from Open
University of Netherlands:
– Demonstrated their studies among LA stakeholders in
Netherlands:
• 70% of the teachers/educators are sure that students are
not able to learn from the learning analytics;
• Study on LA quality indicators demonstrated that LA experts
consider LA important mainly because it provides the
learning and outcome support and raises the students’
awareness of learning.
• Interesting method: group concept mapping and point
mapping
• http://www.ifets.info/journals/17_4/8.pdf

8. Learning Analytics Summer Institute,
Utrecht (3)
• Workshop guided by Dr Jeroen Donkers from WatchMe
project;
• MOOC about educational management is being conducted
for the second time. Drop-out of the course is high, small
groups do not work optimal way and participants complain
that content does not fit to their actual situation;
• Ideas:
– find out in the early stages the background of the participants
(pre-screening of the participants);
– monitor the progress and redesign the course including
recommending the suitable materials based on the history and
background, relevant study peers and study groups;
– post-evaluate the course.

9. Learning Analytics Summer Institute,
Utrecht (4)
• Dr Ulriche Hoppe (University Essen-Duisburg): “Beyond
the obvious – advanced analytics tools and applications
in educational contexts”
• Obvious LA: frequencies of the activities, participation,
enrollment;
• Non-obvious LA: analysis of sequences and paths that
users are stepping on;
• LA methodologies: activity analysis, artefact analysis
and network analysis;
• It is not important to visualize everything to the users –
complex SNAs or patterns is relevant for the
researchers.

10. Learning Analytics Summer Institute,
Utrecht (5)
• Alan Berg (APEREO), Hendrik Draschler (OuNL)
and Sander Latour
– Experiences with xAPI and LRS similar what we
planned for eDidaktikum: dashboard that provides
overview of activities, comparison with others and
recommendations;
– LTI protocol - allows to embed application to
existing LMS and which works well with the xAPI
standard;
– Caliper – framework and its relation with the xAPI.

11. LADS Workshop @ Ec-tel
• Organized by Adam Cooper, Tore Hoel and
Hendrik Draschler
• Presentation of EMMA LA approach;
• Group work about one data sharing scenario
with the possible challenges, risks,
possibilities;
• Informal learning – how to collect data in
different systems and use it for supporting me
and for data sharing to support the LA

12. Open Learning Analytics Network -
Summit, Amsterdam
• the most obvious aspect of open in the
context of LA is the reuse of code (and
documentation) that others have created;
• open APIs in LA products;
• interoperability of different systems;
• vibrant community of people and institutions
who are willing to share.

13. Open Learning Analytics Network -
Summit, Amsterdam
• Aim:
– Work of different problems around OLA;
– Define research questions of OLA in distributed
learning environment;
– Identify possible funding schemas:
• H2020;
• Eramus+
• COST
• Local funds

14. LACE Spring briefing
• Policies for Educational Data Mining and Learning Analytics
Briefing;
• Target group: policy makers and LA research community;
• Opened by representatives of EC – data protection, LA as a method
of improving learning
• Ward, Julie - If we can use big data for better advertising, we should
also be able to use it for better education
• A lot of representatives on data protection, security
• Keynote: Dragan Gašević
• Projects:
– LACE;
– Lea’s Box;
– PELARS;
– WatchME

15. LACE Spring briefing
• Dragan Gašević:
– LA is not about measurement
– WHY – to optimize learning and the environment it
happens;
– LA mainly addressed for non-traditional learners
(workplace, MOOCs, informal) – 21. cent. learners;
– Lack of LA large scale implementations;
– Study in 2012 – big interest in LA, only few initiatives
that are systematically implemented in organization;
– Researchers do not focus on scalability – a lot of cool
work, scaling not in focus

16. LACE Spring briefing
• Workshops on policy recommendations in the
field of K12, HE and workplace learning:
– LA to become more research questions centered,
WHY is important
– Democratic control:
• Consents – what data by whom for what purpose;
• Ownership of data – who owns data, who thinks he owns
data;
• Transparency – algorithms, analysis, dashboards;
• Privacy
– Need for best practices and living labs – evidences
why and how LA works!

17. SoLAR
• Society of Learning Analytics Research;
• Chair: Dragan Gašević;
• Organizer of:
– Learning Analytics Summer Institutes;
– Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference;
– SoLAR Flare
• Initiatives:
– Journal of Learning Analytics;
– Open Learning Analytics

18. LA in IFI
• More or less all the projects have planned LA element:
– Learning Layers – semantic relations, scaffold of workplace
learning
– Learnmix, LePlanner - analyses the interaction between users
and learning content
– eDidaktikum - feedback to learners and course designers and to
conduct retrospective analysis of users’ engagement with the
system
– Edufeedr – social network analysis, progress based on
performance
– Dippler - connects assignments with learning outcomes through
the use of domain taxonomy based keywords, enabling
contextualised analysis of learning interactions.
– …

19. LA interests
• “Non-obvious” learning analytics techniques;
• Learning analytics in MOOCs;
• How to give control of data to users –
technical and policy level;
• How to integrate LA to policy-making and
educational research;
• …

20. What next?
• Initiating Estonian Learning Analytics Special
Interest Group (under SoLAR) - Name?
• LA Summer Institutes start next months
– shall we organize ours?
• We need national level implementation – e.g.
eDidaktikum;
• Initiating policy discussions;
• PhD students – with technical background;
• Twinning, Era Chair, Cost

21. Thank you!
Kairit Tammets
kairit@tlu.ee