News Story

OULAD – Open Data for Learning Analytics released

Martin Hlosta, Monday 23 Nov 2015

The OUAnalyse team led by Prof. Zdenek Zdrahal has recently released the Open University Learning Analytics dataset (OULAD). This educational dataset is available under the CC-BY 4.0 license for everybody who wants to experiment with new ideas in Learning Analytics.

The uniqueness of the dataset lies mainly in the richness of data describing student behaviour in the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It contains more than 10 millions of records from 22 course presentations generated by more than 32,000 students. To protect personal data, the dataset has been anonymised using the state-of-the art techniques k-Anonymity and L-Diversity.

The dataset was first publically presented at the Open Data Mashup challenge day held on 17th November 2015. This event organised by the Open Data Institute brought together academics, developers and students from a number of UK institutions interested in open data in higher education.

The OULAD team is really looking forward to hearing about novel uses of the dataset. If you need additional information about the dataset and want to download it, please visit https://analyse.kmi.open.ac.uk/open_dataset.