towards portable learning analytics dashboards - andrii vozniuk, sten govaerts, denis gillet
DESCRIPTION
The paper was presented at ICALT 2013: http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/185963?ln=en This paper proposes a novel approach to build and deploy learning analytics dashboards in multiple learning environments. Existing learning dashboards are barely portable: once deployed on a learning platform, it requires considerable effort to deploy the dashboard elsewhere. We suggest constructing dashboards from lightweight web applications, namely widgets. Our approach allows to port dashboards with no additional cost between learning environments that implement open specifications (OpenSocial and ActivityStreams) for data access and use widget APIs. We propose to facilitate reuse by sharing the dashboards and widgets via a centralized analytics repository.TRANSCRIPT
Towards Portable Learning Analytics Dashboards
Andrii Vozniuk, Sten Govaerts, Denis Gillet
EPFL, Switzerland
July 15, 2013
ICALT Beijing
Technology Enhanced Learning
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http://www.ypfp.org/classroom
From local to distributed
Technology Enhanced Learning
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From well-defined to flexible
Challenges
Observe, control and adjust the learning process
Consider individual capabilities and preferences
Opportunities
Remote education is mediated by a digital environment
Learners leave a ‘digital footprint’
Increasingly more traces can be recorded
How to meet the challenges?
Technology Enhanced Learning
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Data should be used to improve learning
What is Learning Analytics
“LA is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting
of data about learners in their context, for purposes of
understanding and optimizing learning and the environmentin which it occurs” – Siemens et. al.
Examples
Student drop out prediction systems
Live statistics about the learners
Individual progress vs group progress
Learning Analytics Dashboards
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LA is becoming an essential component of a learning system
Learning Analytics Dashboards
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Blackboard
Learning Analytics Dashboards
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Signals by Purdue
Learning Analytics Dashboards
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Student Activity Meter by Leuven
Learning Analytics Dashboards
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Google Analytics Dashboard
Dashboard is a popular way to represent LA
What is portability?
“Software portability is the ability to run the same software on different platforms with no or little effort”
Why is analytics portability important?
Switching the platform or using a few simultaneously
Persisting the same learning analytics environment
Portability prerequisites
Access the data in the same way on different platforms
Visually represent the UI components in the same way
Learning Analytics Portability
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Unified data access and portable dashboard representation
Tightly coupled LA solutions
Developed for a specific platform, e.g. Blackboard
Platform-specific, usually proprietary APIs
Do not work on other platform
Pluggable LA solutions
Integrated into a platform via a plugin interface, e.g. Moodle
Not compatible across platforms
Standalone LA solutions
General web analytics services, e.g. Google Analytics, Woopra
Services developed specific for LA, e.g. CAM web service
Learning Analytics Architectures
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Existing LA dashboards are barely portable
ActivityStreams
Open Specifications For Data Access
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Open Specifications For Data Access
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Activity Theory
ActivityStreams
Open Specifications For Data Access
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ActivityStreams unifies access to learners’ activity data
JSON
Specification
Open Specifications For Data Access
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OpenSocial and ActivityStream unify data access
Social features of a LMS should be accessible as well
Relationship between users, resources and tools
OpenSocial specification
Describes common method for accessing social data
Defines a set of common APIs
OpenSocial is adopted by
Ning
MySpace
Orkut
Some TEL solutions: Sciverse, ROLE
Widget is a lightweight web-based application
OpenSocial widgets rendered with Apache Shindig
Learning Dashboards as Metawidgets
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Widgets can be used to implement portable components
Widgets can be combined in a metawidget
Learning Dashboards as Metawidgets
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Metawidgets provide portable dashboard representation
Architecture
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Allows to port dashboards between learning environments
Prototype
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Graasp – https://graasp.epfl.ch
An agile social media platform for social learning and knowledge management
Portability is best achieved with open standards
Our solution uses ActivityStreams, OpenSocial and widgets
Already implemented in Graasp
Integration into Moodle is in progress
Can be integrated into other learning environments
Code is available on GitHub
See: http://github.com/react-epfl/
Summary
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