Governance

Abelardo Pardo is Professor and Dean Academic at the Division of Information Technology, Engineering and the Environment at the University of South Australia. His research interests include the design and deployment of technology to increase the understanding and improve digital learning experiences. More specifically, his work examines the areas of learning analytics, personalized active learning, and technology for student support.

Xavier Ochoa is an Assistant Professor of Learning Analytics in the Department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology of the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University (NYU). Since the start of his career, Xavier has been working at the convergence point of Education and Technology. His initial work on quantitative analysis of digital learning materials conducted his research into the nascent field of Learning Analytics where he was invited as a keynote of the first Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK). Xavier has been an active researcher in this field, currently being an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Learning Analytics and Vice-president of the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR). His main research interest is the automatic measurement and feedback of 21st-century skills through multimodal analysis of learning activities that occur across physical and online spaces.

Sasha Poquet is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for the Application of Learning Science and Educational Technology (ALSET) and the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore. In her role at ALSET, she bridges educator track staff with academic domain experts and IT specialists. Sasha combines her social science background and computational approaches to research peer effects and learning networks in digital settings. Within SoLAR, Sasha chairs a Membership working group that enables information exchange between SoLAR institutional members. She is interested in how institutions adopt learning analytics through the lens of complexity theory, as well as how educators transfer learning analytics to their everyday practices.

Dr. Vitomir Kovanovic is a Research Fellow at the School of Education, University of South Australia and a Data Scientist at the Teaching Innovation Unit, University of South Australia. Vitomir obtained his Ph.D. in Informatics, at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom in 2017 for his work on learning analytics within online learning. His research focuses on the development of novel learning analytics systems using learners' trace data records collected by learning management systems with the goal of understanding and improving student learning. Vitomir is particularly interested in students' self-regulation of learning and understanding how trace data can be used to gain a deeper understanding of learning processes. Vitomir is also an Academic Editor at PLOS One journal, for the pedagogy and education sections.

Shibani Antonette is a Doctoral Candidate in Learning Analytics at the Connected Intelligence Centre, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia. Her PhD is on Writing Analytics for automated feedback and its integration in higher education practice to improve student writing. More broadly, her research cuts across the fields of data science and education using text analytics to improve teaching and learning contexts. Shibani has been awarded scholarships from ACM-Women in Computing, SoLAR, Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education, and UTS to present her research work. She currently chairs the Special Interest Groups within SoLAR. More information at: https://antonetteshibani.com/

Simon Buckingham Shum is Professor of Learning Informatics at the University of Technology Sydney, where serves as inaugural director of the Connected Intelligence Centre. Prior to this, he was Professor of Learning Informatics and Associate Director (Technology) at the UK Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute. He brings a background in Psychology, Ergonomics and Human-Computer Interaction, and a career-long fascination with making thinking visible using software. He has been active in shaping the field of Learning Analytics, and was a founding member of the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), with whom he has served as an elected Executive Member and Vice-President. He was Co-Founding Editor of the Journal of Interactive Media in Education, his books include Visualizing Argumentation, Knowledge Cartography and Constructing Knowledge Art, plus journal special issues spanning learning analytics, educational technology, hypermedia and human-computer interaction.

Rebecca is a senior lecturer in the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) and a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her primary research interests are educational futures and how people learn together online. Her work has supported implementation of learning analytics across Europe, and promotes a focus on social learning analytics. Rebecca is currently a principal investigator on the EU-funded project: European MOOC Consortium: Labour Market, and previously had leading roles in the Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) and on Learning Analytics for European Educational Policy (LAEP). She was a Program Chair of the Learning Analytics and Knowledge 2018 (LAK18) conference in Sydney, Australia, and LAK19 in Tempe, Arizona.

Hiroaki is a Professor at the Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, and the Graduate School of Informatics at Kyoto University. His current research focuses on evidence-based education through learning analytics, and educational data science for lifelong learning.

Shenita Ray currently serves as the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs in the School of Continuing Studies at Georgetown University. Before stepping into her current role, Ray was the Director of Online Operations in the School of Continuing Studies at Georgetown University and the Director of Distance Education and Continuing Education at Virginia Union University. This followed several years working at the University of Wisconsin where Ray was an Assistant Director of the Distance Learning Center, Associate Director Distance Learning Center and the Director for Midwest Culturally Inclusive Conference.

Prior to her career in higher education, Ray worked for General Electric as a BlackBelt and as an Information Technology leader as part of the company’s Information Management Leadership Program. Ray earned her BS in Finance and Information Technology and her M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction from Marquette University. In 2011, Ray earned her PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Maren Scheffel is an assistant professor within the Technology Enhanced Learning Innovations (TELI) department of the Open Universiteit’s Welten Institute. With a background in computational linguistics she started to work in the field of technology-enhanced learning in 2009. For her PhD that she obtained from the Open Universiteit in 2017, she developed the Evaluation Framework for Learning Analytics (EFLA). Next to progressing this work further, her research now also delves into the connection of learning analytics and learning design as well as visualisation techniques for dashboards. Maren is currently Program Chair for EC-TEL19 and LAK20, member of the editorial board of the Journal of Learning Analytics, and of the SoLAR Inclusion working group.

Yi-Shan Tsai is a research associate at the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, with an affiliation to the Centre for Research in Digital Education. She holds a PhD and an MPhil degree in Education from the University of Cambridge. As an interdisciplinary researcher, her research interests span from learning analytics and digital storytelling to reading cultures and multimodal texts. Her current research focuses on investigating social and cultural factors that influence institutional adoption of learning analytics.

Anouschka van Leeuwen is an assistant professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her main research interests include collaborative learning, teacher decision making, and the role of learning analytics in these processes. She is also concerned with implementing and evaluating blended learning in higher education. Anouschka is a member of the communication committees for the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) and the Society for Learning Analytics Research (Solar), as well as a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Learning Analytics (JLA).