Hybrid course instructional design for better practice of learning analytics

ABSTRACT

The adoption of hybrid and distance learning modes, supported by pedagogical and digital innovations, has favored the availability of large volumes of learning traces, resulting from learners' interactions with digital learning environments and services. These traces represent the digital footprints in the form of actions such as logging on, navigating, passing, scoring, etc., throughout their learning process. With the practice of Learning Analytics (LA), these traces are exploited using several different approaches, to foster learners' success. However, educational organizations very often engage in the massive collection of both relevant and irrelevant traces, requiring significant resources (time, material, etc.) and making the preparation and analysis phases linked to these data complex. In this paper, we propose the adoption of a learning object-oriented instructional design methodology with a structured approach to learning outcomes and learning paths, enabling better LA practice for monitoring learners' progression, participation, and performance. This approach allows for the collection of relevant traces, optimal preparation, and effective analysis of learning traces, to take better advantage of the benefits of LA to improve and adapt learning processes. This also makes it possible to better measure the impact of instructional design in LA practice and vice versa.

KEYWORDS:

• Instructional design
• learning analytics
• learning objects
• learning outcomes
• learning paths
• hybridization
• distance learning

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the Conseil Départemental des Landes (CD40) and the Communauté d'Agglomération du Pays Basque for its support in carrying out this research project. The partners in the HyPE13 and Connect UNITA project are also acknowledged for enabling the deployment of the solution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mamadou Lamine Gueye

Since 2019, Mamadou Lamine Gueye is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the Computer Science Laboratory of the University of Pau and Pays de l'Adour (LIUPPA), France. He teaches courses on Cloud Computing, Enterprise Architecture, Object Oriented Programming, Systems Engineering, Business Intelligence, and Machine Learning in the Bachelor and Master programs in Computer Science. He has contributed to national and international research projects in the field of Education. His research interests focus on Cyber-Physical Systems, Education 4.0, and Learning Analytics. He is a reviewer in several international journals in the field of educational and digital innovations. His home page is available at https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6145-5197

Ernesto Exposito

Since 2016, Ernesto Exposito is Full Professor at “Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour”. Between 2006 and 2016, he worked as Associate Professor at INSA Toulouse and researcher at LAAS/CNRS in Toulouse, France. Between 2004 and 2005, he worked as Researcher at the National ICT Australia Limited (NICTA) research center in Sydney, Australia and he was Conjoint lecturer at the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications at the University of New South Wales. In 2010, he earned the “Habilitation à diriger des recherches” from the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse. In 2003, he earned his PhD in “Informatique et Télécommunications” from the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, France. His research interests center on smart Cyber-Physical systems design and management. He has coordinated several actions in national and international research projects, in particular applied to the Industry 4.0 domains (transportation, agriculture and education). He is the head of the SIGLIS and INDUSTRY 4.0 master programs in Computer Science at the UPPA. He has served as chairman and member for many Program Committees, and he is author of more than 100 international publications. He is editorial board member of several international journals and serves for different international journals and conferences program committees in the field of networking and distributed systems. His home page is available at http://eexposit.perso.univ-pau.fr