Research
TU Delft’s research approach of open and online education is principally engineering-based, inter-disciplinary, and strongly data-driven. Increases in the available amount of quantitative and qualitative educational data offer researchers new opportunities to observe, analyze, and ultimately improve learning processes.
The fundamental research questions in 1) learning analytics, 2) learning process design, 3) automatic assessment & feedback have been elaborated in the O2E research agenda and are investigated by faculty members from various research groups, accompanied by 3 PhD students. Prof. Geert-Jan Houben coordinates the research agenda.
For maximum effect, the research will be connected to the open and online education activities in the TU Delft Extension School. There, the more fundamental, longer-term research approach will meet short-term innovation in course development.
TU Delft’s innovation approach relates directly to a number of innovative developments in online courses, such as course tool usage, didactic adjustments, etc. This kind of innovation requires close cooperation with teachers and course developers as well as direct evaluation and analysis. The results and conclusions will feed back to the educational process and teacher training and coaching. For optimal innovation, we have to facilitate teachers with:
- an expertise network for teachers to share practices & experiences
- project funding for course innovation and evaluation
- qualified support by:
– applied educational researchers who can coach and advise teachers on the design of courses, assignments, experiments, labs, etc. as well as on their evaluation and analysis, and can help teachers interpret the outcomes of analyses and convert them to ameliorations or adjustments
– data analysts who can translate teacher requests for evaluation and analysis into concrete templates and reports in the edX software and can answer ad hoc questions with the edX software.
– programmers who can assist teachers in the development of the courseware and analytics support
These support activities relate to practical development and daily support. As a side effect it can leverage results from the fundamental research and raise questions for further research. The innovation approach is primarily aimed at better and more efficient online courses. It also enables experimentation for researchers.
Development and results of both longer and short term research will come together in an open and online research & innovation hub, organized within the Extension School.
