Learning Analytics (LA) is an educational application of web analytics at learner profiling, a process of gathering and analyzing details of individual student interactions in online learning activities.

In Go-Lab, LA apps can be added to an ILS to gather, analyze and report users’ data in order to inform teachers and students on activities or learning products (Enabling LA in your ILS video). Based on this information students can reflect on content, product and processes. We have categorized Go-Lab's LA apps in the sections below.   

LA apps for comparing own ILS activities with other student activities

Three LA apps allow students to make a comparison of their own activities to activities of other students (see for example the figure below):

  • The Timeline app shows for all students graphically in a timeline which phases they have been in over time and within each phase, when and how long students have been active in the apps that were present in that phase.
  • The Time Spent Summary app shows in table the total time each student spent in each phase of an ILS and also the total time spent in the ILS.
  • The Activity Plot app displays as a bar graph, the relative number of actions performed by the students in the different apps found in the ILS, compared to the maximum number of activities performed by a specific student. 
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The Timeline app

LA apps for comparing own time spent to a norm

A set of LA apps allow students to make a comparison of their time spent in the ILS and in the ILS phases to a norm (see for example the figure below):

  • The Time Spent app is normally added somewhere towards the end of an ILS and shows, in a bar graph, student’s actual time spent in comparison to the expectations of the teacher. The teacher can set a norm (as a percentage or in minutes) in Graasp.
  • The Time Planner (most probably included at the beginning of an ILS) allows students to indicate the time they expect to spend in the phases of an ILS and the Time Checker (most probably included towards the end of an ILS) shows, in a bar graph the actual time a student spent in comparison to his/her expectations. 
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The Time Checker app

LA apps for comparing own product with other students’ products

Currently, it is possible to let the students reflect on their own concept map (from the Concept Mapper app) in comparison to the (aggregated) concept map of other students (see the figure below):

  • In the Aggregated Concept Map app students can see their own concept map (in a different color) as part of a concept map that summarizes the concept maps of all students. They can see how often a concept has been included in all concept maps and how often relations between two concepts have been made.
  • The Concept Mapper Dashboard is the version of the previous app for teachers. In this app, the teacher can see per student how his/her individual concept map relates to the aggregated concept map of all students. 
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The Aggregated Concept Map

Phase transitions app

The Phase Transitions app shows, in a graphical way, when and for how long a student visited a phase. In addition, it shows possible regressions to earlier phases or jumping over phases to later phases (if applicable). This information is basically also present in the Timeline app, but the Phase Transitions app uses a different (and individual) representation.

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The Phase Transitions App

Reflection questions in LA apps

To further support students’ reflection, some LA apps allow teachers to include reflection questions (see the figure below). Specifically, this option is available in the Aggregated Concept Map, Timeline, Activity Plot, Phase Transitions, Time Spent, and Time Planner/Checker apps. 

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The option for enable reflection questions in the Time Spent app

 

By enabling the reflection questions option, some default questions are provided (see the figure below). The teacher can use these questions, modify them or create his/her own. Currently, there are five types of questions available: Open answer, Yes/No, Multiple choice, Select a value with a slider and Tabular.

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Default reflection questions for the Phase Transitions app

Other LA apps

Three more LA apps are available on Go-Lab portal, the Submitted Files in ILS app, the Progress Bar app and the Online Users Visualization app.

  • The Submitted Files in ILS app allows the teacher to have a real-time overview of the submitted files of each student in the ILS. When a student submits a file, his/her name appears in the app with the name of the file he/she submitted below, as well as the relative time when he/she did so. When moving the cursor over the file description, the relative time is replaced by the absolute time.
  • The Progress Bar app allows students to adjust their progress (between 0 and 100 %) across phases in an ILS. It is recommended to add this tool at the top level of an ILS to make it accessible anytime and in all phases.
  • The Online Users Visualization app shows in which phase of the ILS is each student currently active. It can also be configured to show in which app the students performed their last activity. The activity information is updated in real time.

Find more about LA apps

Search for the LA apps described above, in the list of Apps under the category Learning Analytics Apps. Click the Preview button to see how they look like and what kind of information/data they present. Watch video tutorials on How to set up Apps to learn more about each of the LA apps and how to configure them.