Learning Analytics is growing rapidly across Higher Education institutions across the globe. There are some software solutions to learning analytics which are mainly focusing on intervention, retention and resource allocation, driving institutions to collect and analyse data at an institutional level. Such data only provides a small window into a student and how they spend their time learning. Institutions link progression to specific interactions and neglect students' self-study, any social factors and any individual learning needs. Therefore, this paper is looking at Learning Analytics and how data can help each student individually. To achieve this, the data should examine and analyse a student providing intuitive data that can be used to reflect and alter learning behaviour. The proposed solution is more than just contributing to a data-driven education system allowing students to add learning activities, set personal targets and interact with members of staff during sessions; this enhances students self-regulated learning skills and their engagement while providing a clearer picture of a student's learning behaviour.
In recent years various learning pedagogies have emerged and suggested that there are changes in the way students learn. Personalised learning is becoming core amongst Institutional Education Strategies, and the use of technologies spreads rather fast. Learning, whether it takes place online, face to face, or as flipped classroom approach, changes the group dynamics and puts the learner in the heart of the education system. For a student, engaging in the process of learning has been an area of research at the University of Plymouth. With aims and goals around student motivation, student engagement and participation, learning becomes more profound, the learner becomes a collaborator, and the institution needs to participate in instructional planning. With Learning Analytics, institutions can enhance their reputation by increasing student learning retention and success. By using Learning Analytics, institutions value their 2
Craig Banyard and Ismini Vasileiou learners, and the latter can shape their experiences and learn according to their goals and ambitions.
Learning Analytics refers to those applications that analyse educational data in an attempt to provide both the learner and the tutor with patterns of behaviour to improve learning and its related activities. The UK Higher Education sector is trying to respond to forces and changes that either stakeholders or the government is pushing and introducing. Moreover, there are great opportunities that are arising where current practices can be examined and new solutions to emerge.
Kolb’s traditional experiential learning cycle[
Student Engagement is becoming a core area of research across many UK Institutions. Gradually students are invited to suggest views and often make changes to the curriculum and/or research. The growth of roles, responsibilities and opportunities that arise from such potential collaborations, increase the student involvement but at the same time it creates a lack of clarity over the definition of ”Student Engagement”. Common questions we often hear at conferences, policy and curriculum meetings are ”when is a student engaged?”, ”how do we measure student engagement?”, and ”what stops students from engaging?”.
In 2016 the UK Higher Education faced the introduction of the Teaching
Excellence Framework (TEF)[
The authors, reinvestigated the current UK Higher Education climate, analysing the current Learning Analytics process and it was apparent that the institutional focus across the UK was mainly on data collected by the establishment and what the latter can do with such data. For the purpose of this study, the authors approached the data from the student perspective. Thus, the data collected and analysed had to tell a story where the student can use the data for their continuous personal development and reinforcing their learning. The questions that started formulating were around attendance, module grades, overall course grade and of course how all these define student engagement. Some argue that when face to face interaction is present, then the students perform better.
Craig Banyard and Ismini Vasileiou
Higher education institutions are collecting vast quantities of data; however, the
data collected only shows a narrow insight into students learning and
development. The institutions can only analyse the data that has been produced on
university systems or while a student is on campus, this can produce a bias in the
data which during analysis can lead to misinterpretation. The literature suggests
that student engagement is closely linked to the students’ desired outcomes from
university and can attribute to students persistence, educational attainment and
their learning and development [
The authors designed an application to provide students with a broad
picture of their learning behaviours while fostering student engagement. It was
identified that student participation is essential to gain a comprehensive view
as there are many learning activities for example ”Writing up Notes” that
without participation from the students it would be impossible for universities to
collect and analyse. Ifenthaler and Schumacher[
Putting analytics into the hands of students 5
The application has three main components; the first allows the student to view and add learning activities, giving the student the ability to monitor how long they are spending on each learning activity they are also able to compare themselves with the average of his or her peers. The second component of the application allows users to set personal targets for learning activities and modules which can keep them on track or to push themselves to spend more time on a particular activity. The final component of the application facilitates interaction with a member of staff during sessions. Students can ask anonymous questions which the lecturer can see in real time, giving students the ability to engage in a dialogue without fear of asking a question that might seem irrelevant to their peers. The lecturer is also able to poll the room they can define the question and what each of the three responses are, allowing them to quickly gauge students’ understanding of the material and make their sessions more interactive. As the authors reflected on the outcomes of the app, it was evident that there is a high need to use the available institutional data not only for the benefit of improving HE policies, but also to offer the students direct access to their profiles, give them the opportunity to identify areas of development and self 6
Craig Banyard and Ismini Vasileiou
awareness. Big Data is becoming increasingly important research across the
society. In Education, the collection of data over the years has been massive, but
it has not been used in an attempt to provide definitions and terminology that
will be useful to both educators and students. During this research, by reversing
the focus of data and the outcome of them we have defined the below definitions
of Learning Analytics[
Learning Analytics Interpreting the data that are being gathered on behalf of the students and identifying their learning objectives and how that feeds back to the module and its allocated assessed element is an aspect that at least UK establishments are not implementing fully. The desire though to produce and predict student progress is vital; this can be achieved by observing learning behaviours and data associated with it.
Predictive Analytics In this category the need to identify patterns of reliable conclusions in order to lead to actions that demonstrate impact and change across one or more educational establishments.
Action Analytics Recognising the high need for academic productivity can be achieved by focusing on encompassing practices, and measuring the innovation and performance by cultivating and shifting behaviours and cultures.
The development of the proposed app has led the authors to propose a
conceptual framework of how an establishment can use the data collected to support
students’ personal and continuous development. Since it is acknowledged that
data are collected at different levels and for different needs, it is proposed that
Higher Education should start focusing on using Learning Analytics for the
benefit of the individual learner and not just for benefiting the institution’s goals[
Putting analytics into the hands of students 7 Fig. 4. Conceptual framework of Learning Analytics and Decision Making in Higher Education 5
Learning in Higher Education is increasingly becoming a large area of research. It is mostly common that Institutions develop and research this field for the benefit of the tutor. However, in our research we have placed the focus on the student and it is aiming at developing such an approach where learning analytics will be used by the students. This is the beginning of our research and case study and we intend to investigate in a variety of future research questions such as what institutional resources do we need? How can we integrate analytics and learning to design teacher inquiry? What is the technical, financial, social and cultural impact on institutions?
Data can change everything. Learning Analytics in Higher Education is an evolving process, with no clear start point and no clear end point. Predictive analytics should help not only individual students, but in the bigger picture, it could help institutions to identify recommendations around realities and implications. Analytics is becoming an important part not only for Higher Education, but also businesses. It is an emerging technology and the interactions behind it can lead to successful summarised reports and displays. Business intelligence techniques assist the analytics techniques to continue to grow and to enable better decision making. The responsibility of the researchers investigating and manipulating such data is great and this is an area that still lacks guidance in the modern world. With the 4th Industrial revolution the philosophical approach and personal beliefs of the researchers can impact on efficacy. Researchers often focus mostly on exploring the various dimensions of learning analytics. What it tends to be missing is the analysis of learning outcomes, how those are measured, what patterns can be formulated and how the latter can enforce and reinforce decisions. Transparency is a key aspect of any form of analytics and especially 8
Craig Banyard and Ismini Vasileiou when it comes to education, institutions and their direct relationship to the students and the student experience.
Social conditions change rapidly. Social networks, forms of communication, the Internet of Things and so many other things influence but at the same time inspire every individual and in this case the students. Student demand is growing. There is emerging evidence that students wish to be provoked, challenged and pushed in their learning. Moreover, they want to be more informed about their learning progress. The possibilities of expanding the Learning Analytics process for every Higher Education establishment are huge. Institutional decisions should be carefully informed by using Learning Analytics in such a way that is a collaborative approach between the educators and the students. This way, Higher Education will be in a good position to deliver but also to enable success.
Putting analytics into the hands of students