The overall aim of the ‘Onwards from Learning Analytics’ (OfLA) project is to best understand how we can use learning analytics and other early warnings to improve the quality of the support provided to students through staff intervention. The Higher Education sector is embracing big data at a growing rate, but with the rising numbers of institutions who have implemented learning analytics solutions, comes an increasing body of institutions facing the subsequent, formidable challenges of developing the institutional readiness and staff capacity to actually utilise that data to support students effectively. This project seeks to build on the work of other learning analytics projects focussed on developing and embedding learning analytics solutions, to provide guidance for the important next steps of the process. The project focuses upon using tutorial and study adviser models of interventions to bring about improved outcomes for students, particularly those who are at risk or dropping out or achieving poor outcomes. This is likely to be of most benefit to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly those who lack the ‘cultural capital’ of how to succeed in a HE environment, and thus we believe this work has high potential for addressing disparities of attainment and inclusion. The project team comprises three higher education institutions committed to educational innovation, Nottingham Trent University (UK), Artevelde University College (Belgium) and The University Medical Center Utrecht (Netherlands). The profiles of these participants are as follows: - Nottingham Trent University is one of the largest universities in the UK with approximately 28,000 students studying a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a wide range of disciplines. The University has been graded as having the highest quality of teaching provision, achieving Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework. In addition to being awarded Times Higher Education (THE) University of the Year in November 2017 and Modern University of the Year 2018 in the Sunday Times. - Artevelde University College, a member of the Ghent University Association, has approximately 14,000 students on a wide variety of study programs in the fields of business, teacher training, healthcare and social work. It is a progressive centre of expertise for education, research and development, where students, staff members and strategic partners work together in a stimulating, internationally-oriented environment. Its continuous efforts to improve its educational offer and service range have recently been acknowledged by the committee of the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation Organization (NVAO). - The University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) is one of the largest of the eight academic centers in the Netherlands. UMCU is situated in the middle of a vibrant biomedical research and entrepreneurial community: Utrecht Life Sciences (www.utrechtlifesciences.nl). This represents a strategic alliance in education, research and entrepreneurship in the Life Sciences & Health domain in the Utrecht area, located in the very heart of the Netherlands. The Education Center is an authoritative education innovator, both nationally and internationally. This project will test interventions using a three stage model: prompts, communication and actions. This model aims to cover the key steps in bringing about change based on data: - staff awareness of the need for intervention (prompts) - student awareness of the need for intervention (communication) - the intervention itself (actions). The research approach will be to first work with teams of staff already offering advice to students in order to identify key deficiencies in knowledge, resources and guidance and to identify examples of existing best-practice. The scope of the project will be widen in subsequent stages by working with new and existing teams to adopt and assess revised approaches. This will culminate in a series of outputs based on the body of knowledge generated throughout the project, to include; reports analysing different approaches to interventions, resources kit of strategies and approaches for staff to use at the point where analytics or other systems have identified that a student may need an intervention, staff development resources and policy guidance documents. We believe that this is a valuable and timely project with the potential to provide the advice and guidance necessary to ensure the potential of learning analytics is unlocked, resulting in significant benefits for students across Europe. We believe that the concept of using data to improve student outcomes, for example the use of learning analytics, is one that will persist within the higher education sector, and therefore we feel the potential impact of this work is high both in the short and longer term. We perceive that this work will from a platform from which others in the community will seek to build, thus assuring its long term benefits.
Context/ background The OfLA project was a three-institution collaborative piece of work to explore the use of learning analytics and early warning systems to support students in higher education. This is a project from within the fields of educational technology and big data. However, it was set up to specifically explore what happens once institutional systems have identified that students are in need of further support. The project is strongly tied to issues of social mobility and reducing barriers to participation in higher education. We have, as far as possible, sought to avoid discussions about technology, but have instead focussed on how early warnings are perceived and used by staff as they support students. We have tried to focus on the pedagogical and psychological aspects of support giving, but, of course, have developed recommendations about institutional systems and the use of learning analytics technology. The project was oriented around a structured model devised by the team. We would argue that the main reason that learning analytics has, so far, failed to transform student outcomes is that too much is assumed just to happen once learning analytics have identified that students are at risk. The project set out to understand how and when institutions fail to engage students and explored three areas using the leaky pipeline metaphor. - Trigger/ alert - how do we make the alert happen at the right time to initiate a useful intervention? - Communications - how do we effectively communicate with the students so that they engage with the support available? - Intervention - how do we develop an intervention that helps students to understand that they need to change their approach to study or use support available in the institution? Objectives The project had four sets of objectives: • To build up a body of knowledge amongst practitioners about ways to use data to improve the quality of interventions • To produce reports, briefings and staff development materials and disseminate them through internal and external events • To have used staff development and guidance to increase staff capacity in data literacy and advising using learning analytics • To have shared these resources through national and international conferences Number and type/profile of participants The project team comprised three higher education institutions with an interest in educational intervention and using technology to augment the support process: Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Artevelde University College/ Arteveldehogeschool (AHS) and The University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU). The project teams contained experts in learning analytics, educational management and supporting students. The team employed or seconded researchers from education and social science backgrounds. Description of activities undertaken The project worked in three one-year cycles. - Year 1 - baseline research - understanding the issues involved using learning analytics and early warning systems to support students: surveys and interviews with students and relevant staff (tutors, advisers, managers, etc.) - Year 2 - small scale experimentation - pilot studies exploring issues of supporting students using learning analytics: for example looking at the trigger, forms of communication and the nature of advising and tutoring - Year 3 - continued experimentation, but also developing intellectual outputs with broader themes for staff: staff development, policy for interventions, using institutional data and an overview of the key project findings Results and impact attained Despite the challenges of Covid-19, the project team met its objectives of working with staff and students to understand the barriers associated with using learning analytics and early warning systems to support students. Our results (perhaps best summarised in Output 16) uncover many of the issues associated with supporting students using data. We have disseminated these findings internally with colleagues, at national events and international conferences. The project team has posted resources to the project website for colleagues to continue to use (www.oflaproject.eu). The team have written their findings in academic publications, have contributed to national reports on the use of learning analytics and written about aspects of the project more informally (www.LivingLearningAnalytics.blog). Following the end of the project, we have continued to share our findings and recommendations with the sector and engage interested colleagues. We have developed findings and recommendations about the initial trigger/ prompt, ways to communicate to students, how to deliver an effective intervention and finally some guidance for institutions about ways to manage the process of using learning analytics and early warning systems to support students.