Posts tagged learning analytics
Online professional development across institutions and borders
Article written by Bart Rienties, Blazenka Divjak, Michael Eichhorn, Francisco Iniesto, Gillian Saunders-Smits, Barbi Svetec, Alexander Tillmann and Mirza Zizak and published in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education as part of the EU-funded project ‘RAPIDE’.
Abstract
Professional development (PD) is a key element for enhancing the quality of academic teaching. An increasing number of PD activities have moved to blended and online formats, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the desire, potential, and need for collaboration among educators to learn from innovative and best practices, several institutions have started to pool their resources and expertise together and have started to implement cross-institutional and cross-national online professional development (OPD). The questions of what type of a (cross-)institutional OPD educators might prefer, and whether educators learn effectively from (and with) peers in such cross-cultural context have not been adequately explored empirically. In this case-study across three European countries, we explored the lived experiences of 86 educators as a result of a cross-institutional OPD. Using a mixed methods design approach our pre-post findings indicated that, on average, participants made substantial gains in knowledge. In addition, several cultural differences were evident in the expectations and lived experiences in ODP, as well as the intention to transfer what had been learned into one’s own practice of action. This study indicates that while substantial economic and pedagogical affordances are provided with cross-institutional OPD, cultural differences in context might impact the extent to which educators implement lessons learned from OPD.
Keywords
Online professional development, Cross-institutional, Cultural, Mixed method, Innovative pedagogy, Higher education
Reference
Rienties, B., Divjak, B., Eichhorn, M., Iniesto, F., Saunders-Smits, G., Svetec, B., Tillmann, A., & Zizak, M. (2023). ONLINE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACROSS INSTITUTIONS AND BORDERS. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 20(1), 30. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00399-1
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License
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on a MOOC in Aerospace Structures and Materials
Article written by Ioana Jivet and Gillian N. Saunders-Smits and published in the Proceedings of the SEFI 49th Annual Conference.
Abstract
In March 2020 COVID-19 brought the world and with that aviation to a standstill. Also in March 2020, the third run of the DelftX MOOC Introduction to Aerospace Structures and Materials started on edX. This MOOC generally attracts a mixture of young aviation enthusiasts (often students) and aviation professionals. Given the large interest MOOCs have received as the pandemic hit, we investigate how the new global context affected the motivation and the way learners interact with our course material. For this project, we will use learning analytics approaches to analyse the log data available from the edX platform and the data from pre- and post-course evaluations of two runs of the same MOOC (2019 and 2020). With the insights gathered through this analysis, we wish to better understand our learners and adjust the learning design of the course to better suit their needs. Our paper will present the first insights of this analysis.
Keywords
MOOC, Aerospace Engineering, Learning Analytics, Lifelong Learning
Reference
Jivet, I., & Saunders-Smits, G. (2021). THE EFFECT OF THE COVID-19 PANDAMIC ON A MOOC IN AEROSPACE STRUCTURES AND MATERIALS. In H-U. Heiß, H-M. Järvinen, A. Mayer, & A. Schulz (Eds.), Blended Learning in Engineering Education: challenging, enlightening – and lasting? (pp. 258-267)
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Presentation
Presentation of the work of dr. ir. I. Jivet and dr.ir. Gillian N. Saunders-Smits at the 49th Annual SEFI conference held online from 13-16 September 2021 hosted by TU Berlin:
MOOC Analytics: Learner Modeling and Content Generation
Doctoral thesis of Guanliang Chen, successfully defended on May 6th 2019.
Abstract
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), as one of the popular options for people to receive education and learn, are endowed with the mission to educate the world. Typically, there are two types of MOOC platforms: topic-agnostic and topic-specific. Topic-agnostic platforms such as edX and Coursera provide courses covering a wide range of topics, while topic-specific MOOC platforms such as Duolingo and Codeacademy focus on courses in one specific topic. To better support MOOC learners, many works have been proposed to investigate MOOC learning in the past decade. Still, there are many other aspects of MOOC learning to be explored.In this thesis, we focused on (i) learner modeling and (ii) generation of educational material for both topic-agnostic and topic-specific MOOC platforms.
Keywords
Reference
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Large-Scale Learning Analytics: Modeling Learner Behavior & Improving Learning Outcomes in Massive Open Online Courses
Doctoral thesis of Dan Davis defended on May 7th 2019.
Keywords
learning analytics, web information systems, learning science, educational data mining, MOOCs
Reference
Davis, D. (2019). Large-Scale Learning Analytics: Modeling Learner Behavior & Improving Learning Outcomes in Massive Open Online Courses. https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:b8be8302-84a0-4b29-a6fe- 761a3f872420
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Opening University Education to the World and Improve Education
Paper presented at the ICERI 2016 conference, 14th-16th November 2016, Seville, Spain.
Abstract
Online education can be used as a catalyst for gaining knowledge on learning and learning processes due to its generation of massive corpora of data on student behaviour. This knowledge can then be utilized to improve the quality of education.
Since 2013 Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) offers online courses for a global population of lifelong learners through its programme for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). TU Delft’s MOOC programme was created with three specific goals:
(i) to deliver high quality open & online education (O2E) to the world;
(ii) to improve education; and
(iii) to grow research output. Since its inception, TU Delft’s MOOC programme has created and run over forty MOOCs, gaining nearly a million enrolled students in the process.
As TU Delft’s MOOC programme developed and expanded over time, an organisational structure was created in which educational processes and research activities were aligned and integrated. This organisational structure supports three research agendas:
(i) course evaluation, which focuses on post-course analysis;
(ii) research-driven innovation through short-cycled research projects; and
(iii) long-term experimental research with a specific focus on big data and learning analytics.
Through the integrated organisational structure, data is simultaneously collected for all three research agendas. This includes user feedback through survey data for course evaluation; user enrolment and activity data for the short-cycled research projects; and data from experiments for the long-term research. Analysing this data has resulted in dozens of course evaluation reports, business and marketing analyses, cross-course analyses, internal reports on student learning behaviour, and a substantial number of peer-reviewed academic papers about results of learning analytics and pedagogical innovations. This output has been useful for their individual research tracks, but combining the results has provided TU Delft with additional insights only attainable by careful synchronization of the three. TU Delft has benefited from these insights and has adapted to the findings both in online and on-campus course design. TU Delft’s MOOC programme provides a valuable environment for innovating educational design experience and developing new educational delivery strategies that can also be used to improve on-campus education.
Future plans build on the current organisational structure and include:
(i) using the results from learning analytics interventions experiments to build a learning analytics ‘suite’ for all online courses;
(ii) testing and validating TU Delft’s proprietary Online Learning Experience (OLE) pedagogical model for online course design; and
(iii) using these experiences to transform and improve on-campus education.
First steps in these matters are already under way with the acquisition of a new digital learning environment and its accompanying learning analytics suite for on-campus education. This way the MOOC programme serves TU Delft’s strategic goals of both educating the world and improving the quality of its online and on-campus education.
Keywords
higher education, innovation, learning analytics, massive open online courses (moocs), links between education and research.
Reference
J.P. van Staalduinen, D. Davis, S. Topolovec (2016) OPENING UNIVERSITY EDUCATION TO THE WORLD AND IMPROVING EDUCATION: USING MOOC-BASED RESEARCH AS A TOOL FOR INNOVATION, ICERI2016 Proceedings, pp. 7336-7343.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union; the Erasmus+ Forward Looking Cooperation STELA Project, number 562167-EPP-1-2015-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD.
LAK15: Scalability and Flexibility through Open Research
Abstract
Delft University of Technology (TUD) is the largest university of engineering sciences in the Netherlands. TUD has been an active member of the Open Resources Movement since 2007 and in 2012 it has joined the EdX consortium. Openness in research and education is central in the TUD mission. It was the first edX partner to issue all its MOOCs under a creative commons license. In this presentation, we present our open research approach and toolbox. This toolbox facilitates sharing of data and the process of collaborative research in the context of MOOCs/online education. The presentation explains our rationale for open research, and our experiences with the toolbox, including research highlights.