(SpringerBriefs in Business Process Management) Learning Analytics Cookbook_ How to Support Learning Processes Through Data Analytics and Visualizatio

10 2 Learning Analytics Kitchen
as data sources are often highly diverse, and the European countries’ educational
systems are highly heterogeneous, sometimes even within a single country, because
of the countries’—and sometimes their states’ (e.g., Germany)—autonomy. Therefore,
a one-size-fits-all approach is far inferior to a sophisticated methodology that
identifies key indicators that can be transferred into software engineering diagrams
and early prototypes to innovate learning and teaching (Scheffel et al. 2014).
2.3 Objectives: Goals That Learning Analytics Applications
Support
Learning analytics supports tasks like measurements, analyses, and predictions
(based on digital data) about learners and their contexts for the purpose of understanding
and optimizing the learning situation and the learning environment (statement
on Learning Analytics and Knowledge from the First International Conference
in 2011). In other words, supported by digital technologies, learning analytics
focuses on improving teaching and learning activities in learning environments
and making learning and teaching situations more transparent to both teachers and
students.
That said, there is a wide range of incentives for educators to experiment with
learning analytics. Figure 2.4 illustrates the frequency of learning analytics objectives
addressed in the learning analytics literature based on how many times a set of
predefined objectives (derived from Baker and Siemens 2015; Chatti et al. 2012;
Fig. 2.4 Frequency of objectives addressed in the learning analytics literature (401 research
papers)