Articles

April, 2017 One of the most common questions I get during onsite readiness assessment visits is, "What can I do, as a leader, to support learning analytics across my institution?" While working with varying institutions, I observed several key ways in which senior leaders such as Deans, Department Heads, and Provosts can support the progress of a learning analytics initiative.

March, 2017 I posted an article about the learning analytics readiness trends observed over the last year as I traveled to several UK HE (higher education) institutions with my colleague, Patrick Lynch from the University of Hull. Patrick and I are co-authoring a series of articles titled "Trends Unpacked." In this series, we will expand upon some of the trends discussed in the article, "Learning Analytics Adoption and Implementation Trends: Identifying Organizational and Technical Patterns".

March, 2017 There's always been a disconnect between the two sides of campus computing: Academic and Administrative. Given the future needs of institutions, this gap will cause increasing difficulties as learning and records management become more intertwined.

March, 2017 Over the past year, I had the pleasure of traveling throughout the UK with a colleague, Patrick Lynch of the University of Hull, jointly conducting Readiness Assessments as part of Jisc's learning analytics project (see "Useful Reading" section below for more information). The institutions varied in student population and demographic representation, and were located across the UK.

June, 2016 For many institutions, the idea of beginning a learning analytics initiative may seem overwhelming and complex. There is often the perception that too much work needs to be done before any type of initiative can be explored. You might be surprised to learn that most institutions are already prepared for some type of learning analytics initiative. Whether your institution is ready to use student data and visualize it on a dashboard, or even pursue a small-scale pilot, the quantitative and qualitative analysis of organizational and technical trends supports an overall sense of institutional readiness for learning analytics.

October, 2015 This is the fourth and final installment of our Getting Started with Open Analytics article series. In this article we continue our discussion of how to get started with Open Learning Analytics. Here we discuss the communication component of the Learning Analytics Diamond.

September, 2015 In this article we discuss the role that Student Success Plan (SSP) can play in Open Learning Analytics. Institutions continue to call for ways to improve the success rate for their student population. As increasing academic and personal demands present obstacles to a student's successful outcome, institutions have sought ways to help manage a clear academic pathway, positively impacting student success. SSP allows counseling services, student services, and student support to guide a student to their educational career success.

August, 2015 This is the third of a four-part series of articles on Open Learning Analytics. In this article we continue our discussion of how to get started with Open Learning Analytics. Here we discuss the analysis of learning events within the context of the Learning Analytics Diamond.

August, 2015 This is the second in our four-part series of articles on Open Learning Analytics. We discuss the storage of learning events within the context of the Learning Analytics Diamond.

June, 2015 Unicon has published an article on ways of approaching decision-making about adopting cloud and/or managed services. The article is broken down into six segments. The segments will cover elements including: strategic, financial, architecture, security, process, and people.