Learning Analytics, Educational Data Mining, Adaptive Learning

Since the 2015 release of the EDUCAUSE report The Next Generation Digital Learning Environment: A Report on Research, many articles have been written on various aspects of the NGDLE. In this post, we'll focus on the need for a central repository for learning analytics (see figure 1). Without a central repository, the learning environment — including LMS data and activity records for videos, e-portfolios, and third-party tools — becomes compartmentalized and stove-piped, making it difficult to provide a 360-degree view of the learner and learning environment. This makes it much more difficult to have a combined view of student learning activities that can allow instructors and program managers to ascertain the effectiveness of teaching and learning.