Title
Learning analytics in European higher education - Trends and barriers.
Abstract
Learning analytics (LA) as a research field has grown rapidly over the last decade. However, adoption of LA is mostly found to be small in scale and isolated at the instructor level. This paper presents an exploratory study on institutional approaches to LA in European higher education and discusses prominent challenges that impede LA from reaching its potential. Based on a series of consultations with senior managers from 83 different higher education institutions in 24 European countries, we observe that LA is primarily perceived as a tool to enhance teaching and institutional management. As a result, teaching and support staff are found to be the main users of LA and the target audience of training support. In contrast, there is little evidence of active engagement with students or using LA to develop self-regulated learning skills. We highlight the importance of grounding LA in learning sciences and including students as a key stakeholder in the design and implementation of LA. This paper contributes to our understanding of the development of LA in European higher education and highlights areas to address in both practice and research.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103933
Computers & Education
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Learning analytics,Cultural and social implications,Data science applications in education,Cross-cultural projects,Post-secondary education
Journal
155
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0360-1315
2
0.40
References 
Authors
0
9
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Yi-Shan Tsai1186.58
Diego Rates220.40
Pedro De B. Marcos3286.12
Pedro J. Muñoz-Merino418922.13
Ioana Jivet5483.82
Maren Scheffel626033.06
Hendrik Drachsler766760.15
Carlos Delgado Kloos81121172.07
Dragan Gasevic91569150.79