Last week I ran the first MOOC Analytics workshop for the Future Learning Academic Network (FLAN), the research network around the OU’s FutureLearn MOOC platform. Participants from universities across the UK, plus remote participants from New Zealand and Australia, joined a very stimulating event, hosted at the state of the art Digital Humanities Hub, European…
I recently joined several hundred researchers and practitioners in Arlington, TX, for the inaugural research conference on MOOCs. I joined an invitational pre-conference workshop, and spoke at a conference panel on "Certifying MOOCs", highlighting the role that learning analytics may play in assessing deeper learning at scale. The MOOC Research Initiative (MRI), funded by the…
During the 2010 UK general election, the first ever televised Prime Ministerial debates took place. KMi pilot research demonstrated the potential of mapping the debates as visual diagrams. In 2015 the next election is expected, providing the opportunity to investigate how knowledge media can deliver completely new ways to replay the debates and engage with…
I have just spent an extraordinary week in Shanghai in an intensive workshop designed by complex systems people, for complex systems people, to reimagine educational systems (research and practice) as complex adaptive systems. I was feeding into future scenarios a complex systems perspective on current developments in learning analytics and collective intelligence technologies. The event…
Last week in Galway, I introduced the recently created Irish INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics to analytics developments as they are playing out in the education sector… Thanks Stefan Decker and everyone else for an enjoyable visit and stimulating conversations 🙂 insight-centre-galway-learning-analytics from Simon Buckingham Shum Abstract: Data and analytics are transforming how organisations work…
Our job in KMi is to prototype the future of the learning society, typically from external research grants which are only awarded to investigate a ground-breaking challenge. We then engage the OU with these inventions when they are ready for adoption, so it’s always a pleasure when those technologies then help OU courses win awards….
I’ve just returned from the European AIR (Association for Institutional Research) Forum. EAIR is the primary forum for research into the dynamics of the higher education sector and its management, and they invited me to share what’s going on in learning analytics. My keynote introduced the data explosion around ‘customer’ interaction and profiling which has…
Dispositions towards learning, especially when stretched and challenged by novel problems, are now being recognised as key to the design of 21st century learning. This forces us to consider how these may be cultivated and assessed, making Dispositional Learning Analytics a critical emerging field. I’ve just put up the videos from our recent Stanford University…
At KMi we’ve been developing a new kind of website, based on years of research into the human and technical factors underpinning computer-supported argumentation, rationale capture and collective intelligence. An Evidence Hub is a structured site designed to harness what is known collectively, from a small team to a global network. The goal is to…
In July 1-5, the world’s leading Learning Analytics people gather at Stanford University, connected to a global network, for a field-defining week. I’ve been on the planning team for a year — here’s how to join in… Learning Analytics as both a research topic and emerging marketplace has recently garnered the attention of faculty, educational researchers…
