It was evident from my visits to universities and colleges in the summer that there’s a lot of interest in learning analytics and an increasing amount of experimentation with predictive modelling and other uses of data about learners and learning. What was clear too was that people didn’t have a good picture about what was going on in other institutions and there was a need for some kind of network for those implementing learning analytics. So Jisc and the University of East London are hosting the first of a series of events in February to enable institutions to share their experiences. Future events will be hosted by network members, at national events or online.
After a welcome from UEL’s Deputy VC – Dusty Amroliwala – there will be presentations and discussions on key issues. UEL itself is doing some great work in analytics and I’m particularly looking forward to hearing from Gurdish Sandhu and Gary Tindell on how the institution has progressed since I visited in August.
After lunch Paul Bailey from Jisc and I will update participants on Jisc’s latest efforts – in areas such as ethics and legal issues, and the commissioning of a basic learning analytics system for UK higher and further education. We’ll also have an open forum where participants can inform each other about key developments in their institutions. And we’d like to gather ideas for some small scale projects to explore new areas of learning analytics which Jisc would support.
The event will be held on Friday 20 February 2015, 10:00-16:00 at the University of East London, Knowledge Dock, Room 2.22, Docklands Campus. There are only 40 places so please register if you want to secure a place.
