Learning Analytics in Practice: Development and Implementation of A Support System to the Management of the Teaching Activity

Abstract

The use of technological platforms based online has become increasingly important in the formative activity of higher education. In this context, by its almost universal use in educational institutions, the LCMS (Learning Content Management Systems) stand out. From the activity of students and teachers in these platforms a huge amount of data ends up being recorded, with great potential for management, which are not used. The idea of the Learning Analytics is related to the organization and analysis of these data, transforming them into intelligible information so that people and bodies of Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) can control actions and make more informed decisions, in terms of the adoption strategy of LCMS and the discovery of patterns that enable statistical inferences The Learning Analytics in education is in its infancy at the theoretical level, which is reflected in the difficulty in maintaining a stable discourse, and, even more evident on the practical level of development and use of these systems. This paper presents the results of the work of design, development and operationalization of a Learning Analytics system to assess the integration of the LCMS in the teaching and learning process in higher education. The proposed system combines the reading of data from two sources: from the automated reporting platform and from a scale applied to students. As a methodological approach to the subject the Design Science Research Process model was followed. The results achieved were reflected in a backoffice of the extraction and analysis system within the LCMS and in the development and validation of a scale to assess the integration of the LCMS in the formative process in higher education. In this paper the operation of this system is done in a real context in a face to face Curricular Unit (CU) for the first semester 2013-2014, at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Porto. The results indicate that this system, when crossing data from two sources, has the potential to allow the process of decision making to be more informed by teachers or leaders of the educational institution, opening new possibilities in the field of pedagogy and organizational efficiency.