Moodle, the de facto learning platform to facilitate research and experimentation with educational data

1. David Monllaó Olivé
Lead Data Scientist, Moodle HQ
#MLW2019
@DavidMonllao
UNESCO - Mobile Learning Week 2019
Moodle, the de facto learning platform to facilitate
research and experimentation with educational data

2. Moodle
“Moodle is the world’s open source learning platform.”
Our mission
“Empowering educators to improve our world.”
Our values
Education, Respect, Integrity, Innovation and
Openness.
https://moodle.com/about/

3. (image: https://news.un.org/en/story/2015/09/509732-un-adopts-new-global-goals-charting-sustainable-development-people-and-planet)

4. Slide with Moodle usage stats worldwide
147 million users.
18 million courses.
321 million forum posts.
1,442 million quiz questions.
1.5 million mobile app downloads.
https://moodle.net/stats/ (28th February 2019)

5. Moodle HQ
73 employees (28th February 2019).
Headquarters in Perth,
Australia.
Branch in Barcelona.
(Image: essetefano, [CC BY-SA 3.0])(Image: JJ Harrison [CC BY-SA 3.0])

6. What are we doing at Moodle HQ?

7. This competency-based curriculum was designed using
leading research on teaching and learning, digital
competency standards, and curriculum development.
Redecker, C. European Framework for the Digital
Competence of Educators: DigCompEdu. Punie
Y. (ed). European Union, 2017.
The Relational Model for Teaching and
Learning © 2017 Solange Lalonde.
All rights reserved.
Developing and Implementing Curriculum
Frameworks. UNESCO International Bureau
of Education. Switzerland, 2017.
The Moodle Educator Certification Program

8. Educational research
Is Moodle the de facto learning platform to facilitate
research and experimentation with educational data?
Nous ne savons pas, mais...

9. Research - Some curious numbers
Moodle
Noodles
Paella
(Image: Kropsoq [CC BY-SA 3.0])
(Image: Jan Harenburg [CC BY-SA 4.0])

10. Research - Some numbers

11. Research - Some numbers

12. Is this all?
No.

13. Analytics engine in Moodle core
● Predictive analytics engine for experimentation and
deployment to production. Powered by Machine Learning
algorithms.
● 100% open source and 100% extendable.
● Implements Moodle's Privacy API to meet EU’s General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements.
(Image: https://opensource.org/)(Image: https://fontawesome.com/) (Image: https://europa.eu)

14. The data and the trained algorithms are
private to each Moodle site

15. Evaluation of predictive models
85%
accurate
(Images: https://fontawesome.com/)
Moodle
database
Machine
Learning
algorithm● Number of forum posts.
● The student completed the
previous assignments.
● Course access frequency.
● …..
No Machine Learning knowledge required.
● Students at risk of
dropping out.
Target
Indicators

16. Model edition

17. Indicators
● Based on students activity (no predictions based on
discriminatory criteria).
● Examples:
○ Number of forum posts.
○ The student completed the previous assignments.
○ Course access frequency.
● Extendable according to each institution needs:
○ Link to other data sources.
Students
Information
System

18. Targets
● What we want to predict.
● Examples:
○ Students at risk of dropping out of courses.
○ Students at risk of missing assignment due dates.
○ Courses at risk of not being engaging.

19. Teacher’s view
No automatic decision-making. Only suggested actions are provided to
educators.

20. Prediction details

21. Ongoing and upcoming improvements
● Import and export of trained models.
● More predictive models for Moodle core.
● Regression and Multi-class classification (Google
Summer of Code).

22. Copyright 2018 © Moodle Pty Ltd - CC BY SA - support@moodle.com
More info in
https://docs.moodle.org/en/Analytics
davidm@moodle.com
@DavidMonllao