News Story

UNESCO Policy Brief: Learning Analytics

Simon Buckingham Shum, Thursday 20 Dec 2012

UNESCO’s Institute for Information Technologies in Education publishes Policy Briefs with recommendations for senior decision makers. KMi has provided the latest briefing, on Learning Analytics.

Summary: Learning Analytics is a rapidly growing research field and commercial , with potentially disruptive potential. While educationalresearchers have for many years used computational techniques toanalyse learner data, generate visualizations of learning dynamics,and build predictive models to test theories — for the first time, these techniques are becoming available to educators, learners and policy makers. Learning analytics promise is to transform educational research into a data-driven science, and educational institutions into organisations that make evidence-based decisions. However, critical debate is needed on the limits of computational modelling, the ethics of analytics, and the educational paradigms that learning analytics promote.