EdMedia 2019 presentation. This brief paper describes a student-centered approach to the research and development of pedagogical learning analytics solutions. The context of the study is a national Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture funded learning analytics project, in which eleven Finnish HEIs partner in developing a roadmap for the scalable use of learning analytics in universities of applied sciences. The paper outlines the arguments for student-centered development of learning analytics in order to better cater for students’ needs. The project adopted a co-creation methodology combining focus group interviews and rapid prototyping, to perform the needs analysis together with the students. This paper describes the application of this methodology, presents initial observations from the study, and outlines the next steps of the research project.

1. Student-centered learning
analytics development in
higher education: initial
observations from needs analysis
Hanna Teräs (Tampere University of Applied Sciences)
Marko Teräs (Tampere University of Applied Sciences)
EdMedia 2019, Amsterdam

2. Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture funded
project on researching and piloting learning analytics in
the Universities of Applied Sciences

3. The project
The project is divided into four main phases:
1. Pedagogical needs analysis
2. Mapping, testing and developing interfaces and visualization
3. Developing, implementing and evaluating pilot interventions
4. Recommendations and design principles for the use of LA for improving
learning at universities of applied sciences.

4. Student-centered learning analytics?
• Overly strong emphasis on the analytics part of learning analytics, at the
expense of applying and researching LA in the actual context of learning.
(Jivet et al. 2018)
• Majority of people involved in LA related development are data scientists
and network analysts, rather than pedagogical experts. (Ellis 2013)
• Vast majority of LA research addresses the needs of researchers and
administration, whereas the perspective of students and teachers is
underrepresented (Leitner et al. 2017)

5. “Let’s not forget:
Learning analytics are
about learning”
Gašević, Dawson ja Siemens (2015)

6. Focus group workshop method
1. Drawing a learning curve : ”When does
learning feel easy/hard?”
2. Group discussion
3. Co-creating solutions (Crazy Eight
method)
4. Group discussion: Privacy and Learning

7. Student workshops in numbers
Approach n
On campus 115
Blended 5
Online 26
MOOC 1
Study Year n
1st year students 52
2nd year students 43
3rd year students 18
4th year students 6
5th year students 5
Postgraduate 23
Degree programs n
Computer science and
information systems 50
Education 23
Business 17
Engineering 16
Social sciences 11
Healthcare 11
Arts and Media 7
Humanities 6
Forestry 5
Customer service 1
147
students
7
HEIs
Various
degree progams

8. Initial findings
• Goals (clarity)
• Assignments and activies (descriptions, level of difficulty, relevance,)
• Content (accessibility, design)
• Interaction (with the teacher and classmates)
• Feedback (right time and level of sufficiency)
• Evaluation of competence
• Development and having an influence
• Usability of the learning environment and other digital tools
• Accessibility of support
• Time management and study skills

9. Students’ thoughts on privacy
YES!
• Improved learning experience
• Improved support services
• Transparency
• Student involvement
NO
• Sharing data with 3rd parties
• Monitoring and surveillance (”Big
brother”)
• Unexpected use of data
• Collect data and not act upon it

10. Next steps
• The analysis proceeds during summer 2019.
• All available transcripts from the workshops will be combined, and a
thematic analysis will be conducted using the Nvivo qualitative analysis
software.
• The observations from the workshops will inform the design and
implementation of learning analytics pilot interventions, which will be
conducted in all partner organizations starting during autumn 2019 and
spring 2020

11. Hanna Teräs
hanna.teras@tuni.fi
Marko Teräs
marko.teras@tuni.fi
Twitter: @markoteras
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https://www.researchgate.net/project/The-APOA-project-Learning-Analytics-in-the-Finnish-Universities-of-Applied-Sciences