DeLFI Keynote Speech on Open Learning Analytics
Professor Ulrik Schroeder held a keynote on Open Learning Analytics at the elearning conference DeLFI & HDI 2016. He gave an overview on the research area Learning Analytics and presented the approach used at the Learning Technologies Research Group of RWTH Aachen University. The keynote has been published and is available as a video on the website of the University of Potsdam,
Learning Analytics currently are one of the major topics in elearning research. The NMC Horizon Report 2016 for example identifies the measuring of learning processes as one of the key trends that will promote the usage of technology in learning in higher education in the next one to two years. The NMC Horizon Report is one of the most important trend barometers for the usage of learning technologies and based on interviews with experts tries to forecast which technologies will become widely adopted short-, medium- and long-term in the context of learning and teaching.
In his keynote Professor Schroeder addresses the challenges of identifying, collecting, and joining learner data, of analysing them with suitable methods, architectures, and tools and finally of processing and visualizing the results for different target groups. The goal is to provide indicators for successful or less successful learning paths to teachers as well as learners who can then react to them and change their way of teaching and of learning respectively.
The focus of the research at the Learning Technologies Research Group lies on openness in all dimensions, that is the integration of numerous sources for learner data, the processing of the data for different target groups and the flexible and choosable interactive visualizations based on suitable analyzing methods.
Several doctoral thesis and habilitations on the topic of learning analytics have been finished or are currently in the making at Professor Schroeders research group. Their results will directly influence the future development of the RWTH-wide learning and teaching platform L2P. In this context openLAP, that is the Open Learning Analytics Platform, will be tested in a pilot phase in nine courses of winter semester 2016/17 at RWTH Aachen University. Additionally, the MATSE trainees at the Center for Innovative Learning Technologies developed a monitoring tool that generates detailed reports for the usage of L2P. The options for data analysis and visualization were presented to the public in a series of articles in the Logbuch Lehre of RWTH Aachen.
The elearning conference DeLFI is one of the most important elearning expert conferences in the German speaking area. Since 2003 the GI, that is the Society for Computer Science, has organized the conference every year and presented state-of-the-art innovative research results and experience reports on elearning topics that have a close relation to computer science to an expert audience. The DeLFI 2016 took place in parallel to the expert conference Higher Education Didactics in Computer Science from 11 to 14 September 2016 in Potsdam and was organized by the University of Potsdam.