LEARNING ANALYTICS: A FOUNDATION FOR INFORMED CHANGE IN HIGHER EDUCATION George Siemens Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI) Athabasca University, Canada January 10, 2011

BLACK BOX OF EDUCATION

Hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing T.S. Eliot

…or where everything connects with everything

1. INTRODUCTION TO LEARNING ANALYTICS

ACADEMIC ANALYTICS “Academic analytics helps address the public’s desire for institutional accountability with regard to student success, given the widespread concern over the cost of higher education and the difficult economic and budgetary conditions prevailing worldwide.” eVolum/SignalsApplyingAcademicAnalyti/199385

LEARNING ANALYTICS “Learning analytics is 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”

KNOWLEDGE ANALYTICS Linked data, semantic web, knowledge webs: how knowledge connects, how it flows, how it changes

2. RISE OF BIG DATA

“This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves. The big target here isn't advertising, though. It's science.”

“Social data is set to be surpassed in the data economy, though, by data published by physical, real-world objects like sensors, smart grids and connected devices.” _web_internet_of_things.php

BLURRING THE PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL WORLDS

Central Nervous System for Earth (CeNSE)

SMARTER PLANET

ALL THE WORLD IS DATA. AND SO ARE WE. AND ALL OF OUR ACTIONS.

3. SEMANTIC WEB, LINKED DATA, & INTELLIGENT CURRICULUM

INTEGRATED KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING ANALYTICS MODEL: IKLAM Bringing together physical (organizational resources, presence, libraries) and locational (xWeb) data with online activities (in various places: , FB, LMS, PLE, CRM)…to improve personal learning and knowledge evaluation

4. TOOLS & EXAMPLES OF ANALYTICS

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EDUCATIONAL CHANGE DRIVEN BY ANALYTICS

MANY, MANY CONCERNS Privacy Security Ethics Ownership Technical infrastructure and protocols Skills needed?

Type of analyticsWho Benefits? Course-level: social networks, conceptual development, language analysis Learners, faculty Aggregate: predictive modeling, patterns of success/failure Learners, faculty Institutional: learner profiles, performance of academics, knowledge flow Administrators, funders, marketing Regional (state/provincial): comparisons between systems Funders, administrators National & InternationalNational governments

Twitter/Facebook/Quora: gsiemens Newsletter: Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference: (February 27-March 1, Banff, Canada) Open Course: