News Story

UNESCO Policy Brief: Learning Analytics

Simon Buckingham Shum, Thursday 20 December 2012 | Annotate

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.