Personal Blogs

Timing: 4 hours

•   Select two implementations of learning analytics from the list below:

                  Ferguson et al. (2015), Setting learning analytics in context:

          Case Study 1A: The Open University, UK: Data Wranglers (pp. 131–3).

      Case Study 1B: The OU Strategic Analytics Investment Programme (pp. 133–7).

      Case Study 2: The University of Technology, Sydney, Australia (pp. 138–41).

      Colvin et al. (2015), Student retention and learning analytics:

      Cluster 1 – focused on student retention (pp. 19–21).

      Cluster 2 – focused on understanding teaching and learning processes (pp. 19–21)

       An example from your personal experience or from your reading on this subject.

• Read about the implementations and, with the help of the ROMA framework (see Figure 3of ‘Setting learning analytics in context’), make notes on how the visions that underpinned these impacted on the implementation of learning analytics.
  

•   You may find that the vision is not clearly defined. If this is the case, state it as clearly as you can, based on the information that you have.

•   In the list above, the options from Ferguson et al. (2015) are already aligned with the ROMA framework. The options from Colvin et al. (2015) are not single examples but clusters of examples. Looking at these examples may help you to become aware of elements that are not clearly represented in the ROMA framework.

In the discussion forum, or in OU Live, compare your findings with those of people who have selected different examples. Which vision aligns best with your view of how learning analytics should be used?