What Are Learning Analytics?
Learning analytics is when an institution collects, measures, and analyses data about students and their learning environments. They can generate actionable insights to help understand and optimise learning experiences, improve student outcomes and ultimately, boost student success.
Learning analytics use data to help educators and administrators improve student outcomes and experiences.
They can find patterns and trends, identify students who need support, give feedback and adjust interventions to individual needs.
So now we know what learning analytics are, but what makes them so important?
Learning Analytics and early alerts can provide actionable insights to boost student success.
“[Learning analytics are] a set of active, predictive and creative measures that can be deployed to improve student outcomes and fulfill their promise of student success.” InsideHigherEd
Why are Learning Analytics so Important?
Learning analytics are vital for education because they allow data-driven decision making and personalized learning that promote student success.
They can help institutions understand students’ needs and challenges. They can use this understanding to prevent the risks and barriers that might affect students’ success.
With learning analytics, universities and schools can offer timely and specific support, and implement effective student success strategies.
Student Success Dashboards using learning analytics can help institutions support students more effectively.
The Power of Actionable Insights
The actionable insights gleamed from learning analytics can be used to inform institutional processes, strategies and operations. By leveraging learning analytics, institutions can drive improvements in key areas such as:
By identifying students who are struggling in real-time, institutions can put in place the interventions needed to get them back on course to succeed and graduate.
Accessing insights into student wellbeing and identifying trends means educators can implement proactive student support. This helps to address issues ahead of time and ensure the right resources are provided at the right time.
By understanding how students are learning, academic advisors and personal tutors can personalize their interactions with students and build better relationships.
Learning analytics enable more personalized communication, targeted support and effective advising. With this, educators can vastly improve the student experience and student success at their institution.
Identifying students from equity groups early in their education journey allows institutions to supply the additional resources and support necessary to ensure their success.
Corporate Governance and Operations
Understanding student’s needs, barriers and behaviors around learning can be used to inform strategic planning, decision-making and reach institutional aims.
Staff Efficiency and Administration
Learning analytics can automate many time-consuming tasks for staff. From identifying students who are struggling, to outreach and interventions. Learning analytics can save staff valuable time and resources.
Combining Learning Analytics and Early Alerts
The best uses of learning analytics will combine actionable insights with early alerts for staff. These alerts come via workflows which are triggered from real-time changes in student success indicators. This can include a drop in grades, lower-than-average engagement on the LMS or falling attendance.
Adopting early alerts workflows takes the stress of manually monitoring student progression off staff. It also ensures that no student falls through the cracks. A workflow can even initiate direct outreach to students and move them through custom intervention steps to help get them back on track quickly, without overloading staff resources.
Conclusion
Learning analytics are a valuable tool for Higher Education institutions. They enable them to collect and analyse large amounts of data about students’ behaviour, performance and needs.
By using learning analytics, institutions can gain actionable insights that can help them enhance institutional and student success. They can also make evidence-based decisions that reliably improve student outcomes, operational processes and efficiencies.
Learning analytics are not just hypothetical scenarios, but real and proven strategies that are transforming education for the better. Any institution that wants to remain successful, sustainable and prosperous in the future, should be making use of this powerful tool to optimise their educational practices.
To learn more about how learning analytics could be helping your institution improve student success, reach out to SEAtS Software today!
“SEAtS Software’s [learning analytics] has truly let us view how our student population is engaging with their classes and online materials and shown us how we can change what we’re doing to support them more proactively.”
Jane Hargreaves – Student Systems and Engagement Manager, Kingston University London
