{"id":9545,"date":"2014-07-02T13:59:45","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T13:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/?p=9545"},"modified":"2024-12-11T01:17:57","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T01:17:57","slug":"learning-analytics-and-moocs-a-path-to-improving-education-quality-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/2014\/07\/02\/learning-analytics-and-moocs-a-path-to-improving-education-quality-access\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Analytics and MOOCs: a Path to Improving Education Quality &amp; Access?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 598px; min-width: 410px;\">\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 71.926230% 0 49px 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/182058342?et=Zg_jz1vmR_9Mdj4BsWL1gA&amp;sig=70pBk0l2yIvn_ejYDj09u5wDdMn-i00lvsYFiQuLwIY=\" width=\"488\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 4px 0 0 10px; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/photo\/group-of-university-students-using-laptop-outdoors-royalty-free-image\/182058342\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#182058342<\/a> \/ <a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gettyimages.com<\/a><\/div>\n<p>[important]The Social Media Lab is examining Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a part of the SSHRC-funded research initiative \u201cLearning Analytics for the Social Media Age.\u201d A previous post, provided an overview of MOOCs and examined some of the more prominent providers. This post will put a spotlight on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/library.educause.edu\/topics\/teaching-and-learning\/learning-analytics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Learning Analytics (LA) <\/a>and their role within the MOOC environment. [\/important]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0Learning Analytics in the MOOC Environment<\/h1>\n<p>According to the New York Times, 2012 was the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/11\/04\/education\/edlife\/massive-open-online-courses-are-multiplying-at-a-rapid-pace.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=1&amp;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Year of The MOOC<\/a>.&#8221; Early proponents have heralded MOOCs as the vehicle that would usher in a revolution\u00a0in education where courses would be free and available to all regardless of income or geography. Since then, the hype and lofty promises have been replaced with rising doubts and distrust. Concerns about MOOCs\u00a0educational quality and low student success rates are on the rise.<\/p>\n<p>To\u00a0ameliorate some of these concerns around\u00a0student retention and\u00a0success in MOOCs,\u00a0learning analytics (LA) have been forwarded as a technology solution that may be able to address some of the challenges faced by MOOCs and online learning in general. This blog post will provide an overview of the integrated LA features used by some of the major MOOC providers and then comment on their potential effectiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Learning analytics\u00a0predate MOOCs and are essentially a set of tools and techniques that measure, collect, analyze, and report data about students and their context. For example, many basic\u00a0learning analytic features (e.g., the number of visits to a given page) are also\u00a0part\u00a0of existing Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as\u00a0Blackboard or Moodle. In contrast to formal evaluation methods (e.g., tests, quizzes, etc.), LA use advanced data analytics to systemically examine patterns of students&#8217; behavior in aggregate for the purposes of identifying areas of concern before they evolve into significant problems. Another function of LA is to help discover more about learning environments. For example, student usage statistics provide a window into how students are engaging with the material and each other.<\/p>\n<p>Using publicly accessible data (e.g., FAQs, help pages, and demo accounts), we have compiled a summary of \u00a0some of the major LA features\u00a0available about\u00a0the top three popular MOOC providers. The features are summarized in Table 1\u00a0below. (Note:\u00a0as these platforms are changing rapidly, some of the features below may not represent the latest version of the platform. Please report any changes to these platforms in the comments section of this blog post.)<\/p>\n<p>As the above table indicates, the top three MOOC providers have integrated some basic participation and activity statistics into their platforms. Of the three providers examined, Coursera provides the most robust set of tools for monitoring and analyzing\u00a0student-generated data within the platform. Coursera also allows an instructor to separate learners into \u201ccohorts\u201d (e.g., students seeking certification versus students auditing a class). This enables a more precise examination of specific learning groups. In contrast to Coursera\u2019s class-wide or target-group focus, Alison\u2019s LA\u00a0tool set is geared more toward providing information about individual learners. This might be useful in a smaller context, however, such a narrow gaze could be problematic in MOOC environments where there might be thousand or even ten of thousands of students. Excluding long answer and discussion board statistics, Canvas Network analytics provide a good mixture of individual and class-wide student data. However, as the Canvas Learning management \u00a0system is open-source, this post can only comment on features found in the default version that is available for trial.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A MOOC Professor&#8217;s Perspective on\u00a0Learning\u00a0Analytics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To date, there are few formal studies that can shed light on whether or not the LA tools available in\u00a0MOOCs are actually useful and effective from the instructor&#8217;s perspective. To get a sense about how LA are being used in MOOCs, we interviewed\u00a0Professor Blaise Landry who taught Dalhousie\u2019s first MOOC, \u201c<a title=\"Grant Writing Bootcamp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.canvas.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Grant Writing Bootcamp<\/a>,\u201d to over 15,000 registrants in the fall of 2013. The course was hosted on Instructure\u2019s Canvas Network platform. \u201cGrant Writing Bootcamp\u201d followed the typical MOOC model; it was open publicly worldwide, the course content was divided into a series of modules, and students were awarded an unofficial certificate upon completion. It also shared in the characteristically high rate of attrition within MOOCs as only around 120 of the 15,000 students who originally registered received a certification of completion.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to both the high drop-out rates and the use of analytics, Prof. Landry suggested that it is problematic to try to compare MOOCs with more traditional online courses as they are essentially different entities. MOOCs are not governed by the same conditions as other technologically mediated forms of distance education. In an online University course, there is an expectation that many of the students come from a certain level of educational background. However, with MOOCs, students are coming into the course at many different stages in their academic or professional careers and have a wider range of needs and motivations for taking\u00a0the course. This lack of uniformity presents a real challenge for course creation, as well as the development of analytics that can accurately capture data about the varied MOOC populations.<\/p>\n<p>While he did not find the integrated LA tools available in Canvas particularly useful for his course, Prof. Landry expressed the value of the discussion board functionality of Canvas. Early on in the course, students were asked to introduce themselves via discussion threads. This allowed Prof. Landry and his TAs to learn about the background of some of the students involved in the MOOC. As the course progressed, the discussion board was a forum for students to not only engage in collective learning, but also to provide feedback about the course which could then be used by the course instructors. In this sense, the discussion board is an invaluable tool for MOOC instructors. However, the act of manually trawling through threads and comments is time consuming and imprecise. It is in the automation of such processes that LA can be of great value in a MOOC setting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Closing Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Like MOOCs, Learning Analytics is a nascent field that is still\u00a0evolving. As demonstrated in the above table, all MOOCs providers do include some basic learning analytics tools. However, more targeted and robust LAs will have to be developed to effectively meet the unique challenges posed by MOOCs such as quality, access and scalability. An\u00a0example could be an automated system that could identify and categorize student shifting sentiments and thoughts as shared on the discussion boards. Such a tool would give MOOC instructors the ability to quickly and efficiently identify emerging themes or problem areas as they arose.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next few years, we will be delving into many of the issues and challenges related to developing learning analytic for MOOCs and other social media-based environments. If you like to join us in this exploration of LAs and MOOCs, please contact us. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>And if you are an instructor who uses social media in one or more of your classes, we would like to invite you to participate in an online survey. The survey is a separate but related line of inquiry about <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">social media and learning<\/span>. It\u00a0is available at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ubcbusiness.qualtrics.com\/jfe\/form\/SV_81FDeDzHEoET833?Q_JFE=qdg\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/SMlearningsurvey<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Written by<em> Lee Wilson<\/em> and <em>Philip Mai<\/em>, with editorial contributions by <em>Anatoliy Gruzd<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>#182058342 \/ gettyimages.com [important]The Social Media Lab is examining Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a part of the SSHRC-funded research initiative \u201cLearning Analytics for the Social Media Age.\u201d A previous post, provided an overview of MOOCs and examined some of the more prominent providers. This post will put a spotlight on\u00a0Learning Analytics (LA) and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,491,489,44,265,264],"tags":[335,333],"class_list":["post-9545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic","category-blog-post","category-org-soc-med-use","category-publishing","category-research","category-web-apps","tag-plasma","tag-moocs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9545"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21069,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9545\/revisions\/21069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}