Governance

Maren Scheffel is a junior-professor for educational data science at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. 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 University of the Netherlands in 2017, she developed the Evaluation Framework for Learning Analytics (EFLA). Next to progressing this work further, her research also delves into the connection of learning analytics and learning design as well as visualisation techniques for dashboards. Maren is currently Program Chair of LAK21, member of the editorial board of the Journal of Learning Analytics, and co-chair of the SoLAR Inclusion working group.

Dr. Bart Rienties is Professor of Learning Analytics and programme lead of the learning analytics and learning design research programme at the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University UK. He leads a group of academics who provide university-wide learning analytics and learning design solutions and conduct evidence-based research of how students and professionals learn. As an educational psychologist, he conducts multi-disciplinary research on work-based and collaborative learning environments and focuses on the role of social interaction in learning, which is published in leading academic journals and books. His primary research interests are focussed on Learning Analytics, Learning Design, and the role of motivation in learning. Furthermore, Bart is interested in broader internationalisation aspects of higher education. He has successfully led a range of institutional/national/European projects, and has received a range of awards for his educational innovation projects. He has published over 250 academic outputs in a range of disciplines, but is most proud of the embedding of several of the educational innovations as “business as usual” at the three institutions he has worked. For the “serious Bart” see https://twitter.com/DrBartRienties, for the “real Bart” see https://www.strava.com/athletes/5325274.

I am a lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University and a member of the Centre for Learning Analytics at Monash (CoLAM). Since embarking on an academic career in 2016, I have played a major role in several local and international research projects on the responsible use of data and technology in education, including an award-winning project, SHEILA (Supporting Higher Education to integrate Learning Analytics), which has informed policy development for learning analytics in over 200 higher education institutions around the world. I joined the executive committee of SoLAR in 2018, assisting with the portfolios of membership and communication. In particular, I have contributed to SoLAR institutional briefs and led the development of a podcast series – SoLAR Spotlight. I have had the pleasure to serve as a publicity chair and poster chair in LAK 20 and LAK 21 respectively.

Ioana Jivet is a postdoctoral researcher at studiumdigitale at the Goethe University Frankfurt and an associate researcher at DIPF in Germany. Ioana has a Masters degree in Computer Science obtained in 2016 from TU Delft and a PhD Cum Laude obtained in 2021 at the Open University of the Netherlands. Her research focuses on designing feedback interventions and learner-facing learning analytics dashboards that foster goal achievement and the development of self-regulated learning skills. Over the past years, she has contributed to Competen-SEA, a capacity building project in South-East Asia around MOOCs, and SHEILA, a research project that investigated the adoption of learning analytics in European higher education institutions and built a policy development framework for HEIs to facilitate adoption.

Isabel Hilliger is the Associate Director for Assessment and Evaluation at the Engineering School in Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC-Chile). Isabel received a BEng from PUC-Chile and a MA in Policies, Organization and Leadership Studies from Stanford Graduate School of Education in U.S.A. Between 2011 and 2013, Isabel led the development of indicators to evaluate school support programs in Chile as the Associate Coordinator for Pedagogical Technical Assistance in the Ministry for Education. Since then, she has been involved in diverse research projects on educational policy and technology enhanced learning in different countries, including a research fellowship at Laspau, a Harvard-affiliated organization. She is currently a PhD candidate in Computer Science at PUC-Chile and her research focuses on the development of processes and learning analytics tools for continuous improvement of higher education in Latin America. In this context, she has served as a researcher in a project titled ‘Building Capacity to Use Learning Learning Analytics to Improve Higher Education in Latin America-LALA Project’. This project is financed by the European Commission, and Isabel has actively participated in the development of a framework to guide the design and implementation of Learning Analytics tools in Latin American universities.

Shibani is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia. She obtained her PhD in Learning Analytics at the Connected Intelligence Centre, UTS. She has a background in computer science engineering and researches on applied areas of computing and data science. Her research interests are learning analytics, writing analytics and artificial intelligence in education. Shibani has presented her work and been a program committee member and reviewer in many LAK conferences. She currently serves on the executive committee of SoLAR (elected as a student member) and co-hosts the ‘SoLAR Spotlight – Conversations on Learning Analytics’ podcast series. She is the recipient of the ‘Future Women Leaders Conference Award’ (2019) for early career female leaders in academia actively involved in the fields of Engineering and IT, and the ‘ACM-W scholarship award’ (2018) from the Association of Computing Machinery, New York for Women in Computing.

Roger Azevedo is a Professor in the School of Modeling, Simulation, and Training at the University of Central Florida. He is the Lead Scientist for UCF’s Learning Sciences Faculty Cluster Initiative. He received his doctorate from McGill University (1998) and completed his postdoctoral training in cognitive psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. His main research area includes examining the role of cognitive, metacognitive, affective, and motivational self-regulatory processes during learning with advanced learning technologies. More specifically, he focuses on the complex interactions between humans and intelligent learning systems by using interdisciplinary methods to measure cognitive, metacognitive, emotional, and motivational processes and their impact on learning, performance, and transfer. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers, chapters, and refereed conference proceedings in the areas of educational, learning, cognitive, educational, and computational sciences. He is the former editor of the Metacognition and Learning journal and also serves on the editorial board of several top-tiered learning and cognitive sciences journals (e.g., Applied Cognitive Psychology, International Journal of AI in Education). He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the recipient of the prestigious Early Faculty Career Award from the National Science Foundation.

Professor Blaženka Divjak, PhD, is a Full Professor of Mathematics and Information Science at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics. She served as Vice-Rector for students and study programs at the University of Zagreb (2010-2014). She was the Croatian Minister of Science and Education (2017-2020), leading four major reform processes: curricular reform of general education, reform of vocational education and training, enhancement of relevance of higher education and excellence of research. She chaired the EU Council of ministers for education and Council of ministers for research and space during the Croatian presidency (January – June 2020). In that period, she coordinated the EU response to the COVID-19 crises in education and research. She has been a coordinator and a researcher in over 30 (inter)national projects. Currently, she coordinates the “Relevant assessment and pedagogies for inclusive digital education” Erasmus+ project, as well as a work package within the “Digital and entrepreneurial skills for European teachers” Erasmus+ project, both of which research learning analytics. Her area of interest and expertise, besides mathematics, includes curriculum development, e-learning, learning design, assessment, learning analytics, strategic decision-making, the Bologna process, as well as the social dimension of higher education.

Nia Dowell is an Assistant Professor in Education at UC-Irvine and director of the Learning Analytics Laboratory (LA-Lab). Her primary interests are in cognitive psychology, discourse processing, group interaction, and learning analytics. Her research focuses on using quantitative measures of language and discourse to reveal the dynamics of socially significant cognitive and affective processes. She is currently applying computational techniques to model discourse and social dynamics in a variety of environments including small group computer- mediated collaborative learning environments, collaborative design networks, and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Her research has also extended beyond the educational and learning sciences spaces and highlighted the practical applications of computational discourse science in the clinical, political and social sciences.

Rogers Kaliisa is a Doctoral Research Fellow in Learning Analytics at the Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norway. His doctoral research focuses on leveraging social learning analytics to support teachers in making data-informed learning design (LD) decisions in blended learning environments. His research utilizes networked approaches (e.g. social and epistemic network analysis) and automated discourse analysis to make sense of students’ data generated from online learning environments and how it relates to teachers’ intended pedagogical objectives.

I am a Research Professor in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in the Department of Business Management, College of Economic and Management Sciences, University of South Africa (Unisa). I am also a Visiting Professor at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany), a Research Associate for Contact North I Contact Nord (Canada) and a Fellow of the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) and serve on several editorial boards. In the South African context, I have a B3 research rating confirming my considerable international reputation for the high quality and impact of his research outputs. Since the birth of learning analytics as a distinct, interdisciplinary research field and practice, my research into the ethical issues in learning analytics, and recently the potential of as well as the political/ethical issues at the intersections of human-algorithmic decision-making systems, is internationally recognised as providing innovative and important perspectives. While learning analytics is still an emerging research focus and practice in the broader Global South and specifically on the African continent, my collaboration with various international and African scholars raises important considerations for the broader learning analytics community.