Abstract
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) provide anyone with Internet access the chance to study at university level for free. In such learning environments and due to their ubiquitous nature, learners produce vast amounts of data representing their learning process. Learning Analytics (LA) can help identifying, quantifying, and understanding these data traces. Within the implemented web-based tool, called LA Cockpit, basic metrics to capture the learners’ activity for the Austrian MOOC platform iMooX were defined. Data is aggregated in an approach of behavioral and web analysis as well as paired with state-of-the-art visualization techniques to build a LA dashboard. It should act as suitable tool to bridge the distant nature of learning in MOOCs. Together with the extendible design of the LA Cockpit, it shall act as a future proof framework to be reused and improved over time. Aimed toward administrators and educators, the dashboard contains interactive widgets letting the user explore their datasets themselves rather than presenting categories. This supports the data literacy and improves the understanding of the underlying key figures, thereby helping them generate actionable insights from the data. The web analytical feature of the LA Cockpit captures mouse activity in individual course-wide heatmaps to identify regions of learner’s interest and help separating structure and content. Activity over time is aggregated in a calendar view, making timely reoccurring patterns otherwise not deductible, now visible. Through the additional feedback from the LA Cockpit on the learners’ behavior within the courses, it will become easier to improve the teaching and learning process by tailoring the provided content to the needs of the online learning community.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Arapakis, I., Lalmas, M., & Valkanas, G. (2014). Understanding within-content engagement through pattern analysis of mouse gestures. In Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management. CIKM’14 (pp. 1439–1448).
Billsberry, J. (2013). MOOCs: Fad or revolution? Journal of Management Education, 37, 739–746.
Blikstein, P. (2013). Multimodal learning analytics. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge. LAK´13 (pp. 102–106).
Charleer, S., Moere, A. V., Klerkx, J., Verbert, K., & De Laet, T. (2017). Learning analytics dashboards to support adviser-student dialogue. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 11(3), 389–399.
Clark, J. W., & Stephane, A. L. (2018). Affordable eye tracking for informed web design. In Design, user experience, and usability: Theory and practice (pp. 346–355). Cham: Springer International Publishing, (cit. on p. 38).
Dawson, S., Gašević, D., Siemens, G., & Joksimovic, S. (2014). Current state and future trends: A citation network analysis of the learning analytics field. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (pp. 231–240).
Drachsler, H., & Greller, W. (2016). Privacy and analytics: It’s a DELICATE issue a checklist for trusted learning analytics. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (pp. 89–98).
Duval, E. (2011). Attention please! Learning analytics for visualization and recommendation. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (pp. 9–17).
Elias, T. (2011). Learning analytics: The definitions, the processes, and the potential.
Huang, J., White, R., & Buscher, G. (2012). User see, user point: Gaze and cursor alignment in web search. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI’12 (pp. 1341–1350).
Jivet, I. (2016). The learning tracker a learner dashboard that encourages self-regulation in MOOC learners.
Khalil, M., & Ebner, M. (2015). Learning analytics: Principles and constraints. In Proceedings of ED-Media 2015 conference.
Khalil, M., & Ebner, M. (2016a). When learning analytics meets MOOCs-a review on iMooX case studies. In International Conference on Innovations for Community Services (pp. 3–19).
Khalil, M., & Ebner, M. (2016b). De-identification in learning analytics. Journal of Learning Analytics, 3(1), 129–138.
Khalil, M., Taraghi, B., & Ebner, M. (2016). Engaging learning analytics in MOOCS: The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Kocher, P., Genkin, D., Gruss, D., Haas, W., Hamburg, M., Lipp, M., Mangard, S., Prescher, T., Schwarz, M., & Yarom, Y. (2018). Spectre attacks: Exploiting speculative execution. In 40th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy S&P’19.
Kopp, M., & Ebner, M. (2015). iMooX – Publikationen rund um das Pionierprojekt. Weinitzen: Verlag Mayer.
Leitner, P., & Ebner, M. (2017). Development of a dashboard for learning analytics in higher education. In International Conference on Learning and Collaboration Technologies (pp. 293–301).
Leitner, P., Khalil, M., & Ebner, M. (2017). Learning analytics in higher education – A literature review. In Learning analytics: Fundaments, applications, and trends.
Maier, K., Leitner, P., & Ebner, M. (2019). Learning analytics cockpit for MOOC platforms. In Emerging trends in learning analytics.
McAuley, A., Stewart, B., Siemens, G., & Cormier, D. (2010) Massive Open online courses digital ways of knowing and learning, The MOOC model For Digital Practice. Retrieved from: http://davecormier.com/edblog/wp-content/uploads/MOOC_Final.pdf. Last accessed Oct 2019.
Rohloff, T., Oldag, S., Renz, J., & Meinel, C. (2019). Utilizing web analytics in the context of learning analytics for large-scale online learning. In 2019 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference EDUCON (pp. 296–305).
Romanowski, B., & Konak, A. (2016). Using Google analytics to improve the course website of a database course. https://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/academics/colleges/seas/asee-fall-2016/asee-midatlantic-f2016-konak.pdf. Last accessed 4 Oct 2019.
Spikol, D., Prieto, L. P., Rodríguez-Triana, M. J., Worsley, M., Ochoa, X., & Cukurova, M. (2017). Current and future multimodal learning analytics data challenges. In Proceedings of the 7th International Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference (pp. 518–519).
Verbert, K., Duval, E., Klerkx, J., Govaerts, S., & Santos, J. L. (2013). Learning analytics dashboard applications. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(10), 1500–1509.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Leitner, P., Maier, K., Ebner, M. (2020). Web Analytics as Extension for a Learning Analytics Dashboard of a Massive Open Online Platform. In: Ifenthaler, D., Gibson, D. (eds) Adoption of Data Analytics in Higher Education Learning and Teaching. Advances in Analytics for Learning and Teaching. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47392-1_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47392-1_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-47391-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-47392-1
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)