Pre-Conference Workshop M5
Key Steps to Creating and Implementing a Learning Analytics Policy
Date Wednesday, Nov 30 Time – RoomCheck Price: free of charge Status: places available
Workshop leaders
Dragan Gasevic
Professor of Learning Analytics, University of Edinburgh, UK
Dragan Gasevic is a Professor and Chair in Learning Analytics and Informatics in the Moray House School of Education and the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. He is the current president and a co-founder of the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) and holds several honorary adjunct appointments in Australia, Canada, and USA. A computer scientist by training and skills, Dragan considers himself a learning analyst developing computational methods that can shape next-generation learning technologies and advance our understanding of self-regulated and social learning. Funded by granting agencies and industry in Canada, Australia, Europe, and USA, Dragan is a recipient of several best paper awards at the major international conferences in learning and software technology. Committed to the development of international research community, Dragan had a pleasure to serve as a founding program co-chair of the International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge in 2011 and 2012 and the Learning Analytics Summer Institute in 2013 and 2014. Currently serving as a founding editor of the Journal of Learning Analytics and the general chair of International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK2016), Dragan is a (co-)author of numerous research papers and books and a frequent keynote speaker. Recently, he has founded ProSolo Technologies Inc that supports personalized, competency-based learning through social interaction.
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Jeff Haywood
Vice Principal Digital Education, University of Edinburgh, UK
Jeff is Emeritus Professor of Education & Technology in the School of Education at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests are in the development of strategies for effective use of ICT in education at institutional, national and international levels, with a particular emphasis on understanding learner experiences. He has led, and been a partner in, numerous EU-, JISC-, SFC- and Research Council-funded projects in the field of technology in higher education and lifelong learning. Jeff was academic lead on a study for the European Commission looking at options for EU governments for modernising their HE systems using technology. He is a past member of the UK JISC Board, the Chair of the Coimbra Group E-Learning Group, and a member of the Scottish Government’s ICT for Excellence Group.
Until 2016 he was the Vice-Principal Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh, leading the university’s digital education strategy, including its expanding portfolio of taught online Masters degrees and CPD, distance PhDs, and MOOCs.
His presentations and publications can be found at http://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/jeffhaywood/
Links
http://www.ed.ac.uk/http://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/jhaywood/
Maren Scheffel
Learning Analytics Researcher, Open Universiteit Nederland, The Netherlands
Maren Scheffel is a PhD researcher at the Welten Institute (Research Center for Learning, Teaching and Technology) at the Open University of the Netherlands. She studied computational linguistics at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Bonn and received her M.A. in 2008. She previously worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT) focussing on research related to technology-enhanced learning. Since 2014 she has been working at the Welten Institute where she was involved in the management as well as the research for the Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) project and now contributes to the Supporting Higher Education to Integrate Learning Analytics (SHEILA) project. Her PhD work focuses on creating an evaluation framework for learning analytics (EFLA). She is a member of the SURF SIG Learning Analytics.
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Content
Learning Analytics (LA) is currently a very active topic in education, but its implementation is beset with potential pitfalls for an organisation wishing to develop extensive use of it. Building upon international experience and local knowledge, the EC-funded SHEILA Project (Jan 2016-June 2018) is creating a policy framework for higher education institutions to enable them to design and enact an LA policy for themselves, using an innovative concept mapping approach (ROMA) combined with interviews of key stakeholders in several European countries. It is a partnership of the Universities of Edinburgh (coordinator), Tallinn, Open University NL and Carlos III Madrid, with Brussels Education Services, Erasmus Student Network and European Quality Assurance Network (ENQA).
The project will be at a key stage of development and OEB 2016 offers an opportunity for us to present our interim findings for comment and advice from participants, both novice and expert, in other words a reality check for the project, and also enables participants to take away lessons from other organisations plus a draft LA framework to support discussions in their own universities and organisations.
We shall discuss with participants our interim data from:
- interviews from senior HEI leaders charged with the implementation of learning analytics to understand the current processes, barriers, and opportunities;
- concept mapping by international expert panel to identify critical concerns for learning analytics policy;
- benchmark of the learning analytics sophistication in the European HE sector by administering a survey to members of the EUA.
The workshop aligns with the themes of Learning and Investment (by learners, by organisations) and Learning and Design (of educational opportunities). LA is focused on enhancing the learning experience of learners and at the same time on enabling education providers to design and modify their offerings to be more effective and fit for purpose.
Agenda
The workshop will have max. 15 min. presentations by each speaker, each followed by a 15 min. group discussion session with feedback to enable participants reactions, suggestions, ranking of importance etc. for the points made and the questions posed to them about creating learning analytics policy and implementing it. After the 4 sections of the workshop, a plenary discussion will be held to enable participants to offer further input, to create an overall ranking of policy and implementation factors and to share any further experiences. The workshop will conclude with a short feedback evaluation.
Target Audience
Members of universities, higher education ministries and their agencies, with an interest in learning analytics, especially those charged with developing policy for LA
Prerequisite Knowledge
Some basic understanding and awareness of LA but direct experience or advanced knowledge is not necessary
Outcomes
The session will enable participants to learn at first hand the lessons about learning analytics policy and implementation from a wide range of European universities and educational agencies/ministries. As active participants they will be able to add their own experiences and share these with others, help us to rank and rate critical challenges and solutions in LA policy and implementation and explore the draft LA policy framework which they can take and trial in their own universities.