Big Data and Higher Education originally appeared on datascience@berkeley and was produced in conjunction with the launch of Education and Skills 2.0: New Targets and Innovative Approaches, a new book from the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Education and Skills.

1. BIG DATA & HIGHER EDUCATION
“Today, digital innovation is driving unprecedented change across the education
sector. In doing so, it has the potential to both improve student learning
outcomes and expand access to high-quality education opportunities in ways
that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago...”
— From Education and Skills 2.0: New Targets and Innovative Approaches
The Higher Education Online Landscape
6.7 MILLION
$91 BILLION
Number of students who took
an online course in 2011
The investment in online
education in 2012
Technological innovations are transforming both what happens in the college
classroom, as well as how students are supported in the admissions process
and enrollment. At scale, higher education’s migration to online will redefine
what it means to provide a great education to students.
According to Babson Survey Research Group, as of 2012,
all but 13.5% of institutions had some online offerings.
86.5%
34.5%
2002
Universities offering
online degree programs
62.4% nearly doubled from
2012 2002 to 2012.
22.1%
2002
Nonprofit institutions with
online degree programs
48.4% more than doubled from
2002 to 2012.
2012
How Education Benefits From More Data
While these investments create new competition in the market, a focus on
the market overlooks the potential educational value generated from these
investments. Online education is producing vast amounts of data on student
learning outcomes, data of the sort that was previously unavailable to
students and educators. It will allow academic institutions to better deliver
and market their degrees to the right type of students. And it will let students
personalize their educational experience to best suit their needs, increasing
the chance they graduate and succeed after.
Help predict student success
Improve graduation rates and student retention
DATA FROM ONLINE
EDUCATION CAN:
Determine what a learner does and does
not know
Monitor a student’s behavior and level
of engagement
Notify a professor when learner is getting off
track, bored, or frustrated
Increase engagement via game mechanics
Personalize the learning process
RESEARCHERS WITH THIS
DATA CAN IDENTIFY AND
ANALYZE PATTERNS TO:
Reduce classroom administrative work
Help faculty refine content to keep relevant
Facilitate both global and local community
development
Measure student performance beyond test scores
The Four Categories of Educational Data
Online education generates a wide variety of data, which universities can
use to improve the student learning experience. These data include:
TRADITIONAL DATA
NEW DATA
USER INTERACTION
IDENTITY
Name
Engagement metrics
Administrative rights
Time on page
School district or university
Bounce rates
Permissions
Demographic information
INFERRED CONTENT
Do different segments of a class
perform differently on an
assessment?
SYSTEM-WIDE
Rosters
Do tailored questions and
question types improve learning
outcomes for different groups?
Grades
Disciplinary records
Attendance information
Does the question actually assess
what it is supposed to?
Challenges to Institutions
Universities and colleges must overcome the following challenges to
take advantage of the new types of data that online education offers.
Education has historically
been very labor-intensive
Historically slow to change
Innovation is nearly always
incremental
Success in education is difficult
to measure
Need for broadband Internet
access may leave out unconnected
households
Inadequate technology infrastructure may slow institutional adoption
The Players
Outside vendors, both for profit and nonprofit, are moving into the higher
educational space, a space that was historically left to colleges and universities.
MOOCs –
University –
Backed
Enablers
Coursera
Udacity
MOOC2Degree
iTunesU
edX
Saylor Foundation
The Open University
OpenupEd
2U
MOOCs –
For Profit
Embanet
Blackboard
Everspring
Deltak
For – Profits
Traditional
Non-Traditional
Capella
AltiusEd
University of Phoenix
American Honors
College
London School of
Business and Finance
Minerva
University of Atlanta
Walden
California Southern
University
Devry
1 http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/changing_course_2012
2 http://www.inc.com/best-industries-2013/april-joyner/online-education-and-training.html
3 Global Agenda Council on Education and Skills, "Education and Skills 2.0: New Targets and
Innovative Approaches," 2014.
4 http://www.babson.edu/Academics/faculty/provost/Pages/babson-survey-research-group.aspx
5 http://www.insidepolitics.org/brookingsreports/education%20big%20data.pdf
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