Abertay University

Learning analytics status:

A system is in place

System in place:

Blackboard

Journey so far:

Abertay University’s goals for learning analytics place an emphasis on graduate outcomes, student experience, retention, progression and attainment (not performance per se). Their aim is to target students who would need support, however Abertay’s learning analytics strategy so far has not focused on intervention. There is also the will to keep in consideration student wellbeing. It is anticipated that through adopting learning analytics it will improve learning content, notably on their VLE.

Currently, Abertay is collecting three sources of data: student achievement (grades), engagement with the VLE, and attendance. Although it is not mandatory for lecturers to monitor attendance, most of them do it through the learning analytics system. Staff training for learning analytics has been provided on a “drop-in” basis.

Future goals:

For their future goals, Abertay University is focusing on improving technical issues from the first implementation through feedback. They also aim to review the traffic light system to enable a more realistic picture of a student’s engagement and add library data to the learning analytics system. More broadly, they aim to ensure students and staff are fully engaged with the learning analytics system.

Feedback on the interventions from learning analytics will hopefully improve this process in the future and enable a targeting of the attainment gaps from students from different demographics. There is also the ambition of improving overall student wellbeing indirectly.

An executive report will be produced each year, and by the academic year 2020/21, Abertay University will have a global overview of their learning analytics implementation.