Available now!

The Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) just finished uploading video recordings of most LAK16 presentations.

They are all available directly from the conference program or on the SoLAR’s official Youtube channel in the LAK16 playlist.

LASI’16 video recordings are available on our official Youtube channel, as well.

The Connected Intelligence Centre at the University of Technology Sydney is pleased to announce the launch of their doctoral program in Learning Analytics, offering three UTS Scholarships to begin your research at the start of 2016.

CIC’s mission is to invent, evaluate and theorise the design of human-centered data science and learning analytics to advance the UTS Teaching & Learning program. As you will see from our Research Themes and the three PhD topics advertised, a core theme is analytics techniques to nurture in learners the creative, critical, sensemaking qualities needed for lifelong learning, employment and citizenship in a complex, data-saturated society.

While our first priority is the future of learning and teaching, we also anticipate broader applications of the tools we develop, to address data science challenges in other research fields and in UTS business operations.

We invite you to apply for a place if you are committed to working in a transdisciplinary team to invent user-centered analytics tools in close partnership with the UTS staff and students who are our ‘clients’.

Please explore the website so you understand the context in which we work, and the research topics we are supervising. We look forward to hearing why you wish to join CIC, and how your background, skills and aspirations could advance this program.

After a successful meeting of people interested in learning analytics last year, the Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) project will be holding a another exciting SoLAR Flare event at The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, on Friday October 9, 2015 from 9:30am to 4:45pm.

This is a networking gathering for everyone interested in learning analytics. Under the auspices of the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) and organised by Europe’s Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE), this event forms part of an international series. SoLAR Flares provide opportunities to learn what’s going in learning analytics research and practice, to share resources and experience, and to forge valuable new connections.

The theme for this SoLAR Flare is “Research into Practice” with the day designed to maximise social learning including:

• a chance to introduce yourself and what you want to know about learning analytics
• plenty of opportunities to meet with peers and explore collaboration possibilities
• the chance to hear — and share — lightning updates on what’s happening (volunteer to do one on the registration form)
• time to explore the future of learning analytics

The day will also include opportunities to learn about how learning analytics are being put into practice in both formal and informal learning environments. Confirmed speakers include:

• Chris Ballard, Innovation Consultant, Tribal Labs
• Bart Rienties, Reader in Learning Analytics, The Open University, UK
• Doug Clow, Senior lecturer at The Open University, UK
• Patrick McAndrew, Director of the Institute for Educational Technology (IET) at The Open University, UK

Learn More

• Full event description
• Access the programme and presentations
• Sign-up to join in person in Milton Keynes
• Join the livestream from 10am–1pm (BST)
• Enter the Twitter discussion: #LACEFlare

The 2014 Australian Learning Analytics Summer Institute (ALASI) will run 20-21 November in Sydney. ALASI adds another node to SoLAR’s international network of community and discipline-building events. Building on the success of last year, ALASI is the premier forum in Australia for the exchange of knowledge and innovation in learning analytics.

Keynote addresses from Gregor Kennedy and Anne Young will offer distinctive leader / researcher / practitioner perspectives, and will combine with workshops, tutorials and panel discussions to create a friendly, challenging event: engage with the national community right at the intersection of data, algorithms, pedagogy and strategy.

Learn more on the ALASI website…

The Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) project – an initiative funded by the EU’s FP7 programme – will be holding a SoLAR Flare event at The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, on Friday 24 October 2014 from 10am to 4.30pm.

We are inviting technology specialists, teachers, researchers, educators, ICT purchasing decision-makers, senior leaders, business intelligence analysts, policy makers, funders, students, and companies to join us in Milton Keynes.

We have designed the day to maximise social learning, including:

• plenty of opportunities to meet with peers and explore collaboration possibilities
• the chance to hear – and share – lightning updates on what’s happening (volunteer to do one on the registration form)
• time to learn about, and contribute to, the LACE Evidence Hub, which brings together research and experience in a readily accessible form
• discussions about future directions for learning analytics

You can register for the event here.

The Society for Learning Analytics research is pleased to announce that the CFP for the 5th International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge “Scaling Up: Big Data to Big Impact” is now open. The conference will take place March 16-20, 2015 at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY.

As we move forward to our 5th annual conference, the theme for LAK’15 shifts the focus from data to impact, reinforcing the notion that Learning Analytics is on the cusp of scalability and continues to grow in importance in education and learning. We invite papers that address the impact of learning analytics and especially encourage submissions that demonstrate how the work is relevant to improving learning for people of all ages, leverages the technologies available to today’s learners, and is scalable within the many places where learning occurs. To accomplish these goals, we seek theoretically motivated papers that utilize analytics to provide direction for understanding and impacting learning.

For details on submitting conference papers please see the full Call for Papers and Author Instructions online. The deadline for submissions is October 14, 2014.

Following LAK’14, SoLAR, Marist College, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison jointly held an Open Learning Analytics Summit in Indianapolis that brought together representatives from the learning analytics and open source software development fields to explore how open source communities can accelerate the potential of learning analytics to provide new tools for understanding and improving learning and teaching. One of the major outcomes of the Summit was the identification of a number of domains for future work by the OLA community. These include: open research (e.g. open datasets, open predictive models, etc.), institutional strategy and policy issues, learning sciences/learning design, and open standards/open-source software. Future face-to-face gatherings include informal meetings at the 2014 Open Apereo Conference in Miami, Florida (June 1–4, 2014), a series of community events in Europe organized by the Learning Analytics Community Exchange (LACE) project, and another major OLA Summit at LAK’15 (March 16-20, 2015) at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

LASI’14 (the Second Learning Analytics Summer Institute) is a strategic event designed to bring together an inter-disciplinary mix of people working with learning analytics for an intensive ‘summer camp’ that will serve as an intellectual and social springboard to accelerate the maturation of the discipline. LASI’14 will be held in Cambridge, MA, USA from June 30, 2014 to July 2, 2014.

While the call for in-person participation has closed, there is still time to get involved in a LASI’14 Local or Global Online event. As with the First Learning Analytics Summer Institute in 2013, a global network of LASI Locals will run their own gatherings. Gatherings are already being planned in the UK (Milton Keynes), The Netherlands (Amsterdam), Spain (Madrid), Egypt (Cairo), USA (Georgia) and Hong Kong. So get inspired, and self-organise! This year, we are planning ways in which the activities of LASI Locals will be more visible to Cambridge, MA, USA and to each other.