Methods for Analyzing and Leveraging Online Learning Data

Book excerpt: While online learning continues to be a rapidly expanding field of research, analyzing data allows educational institutions to fine tune their curriculum and teaching methods. Properly utilizing the data, however, becomes difficult when taking into account how socio-technical systems are used, the administration of those systems, default settings, how data is described and captured, and other factors. Methods for Analyzing and Leveraging Online Learning Data is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the application of data in online education for improving a system’s capabilities and optimizing it for teaching and learning. This publication explores data handling, cleaning, analysis, management, and representation, as well as the methods of effectively and ethically applying data research. Tying together education and information science with special attention paid to informal learning, online assessment, and social media, this book is ideally designed for educational administrators, system developers, curriculum designers, data analysts, researchers, instructors, and graduate-level students seeking current research on capturing, analyzing, storing, and sharing data-analytic insights regarding online learning environments.