Learning Analytics Directory

The publications listed on this page are research studies about Indiana University’s Learning Analytics Fellows program, including articles about its origins, its relationship to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, an evaluation of the program, and CLASS's collaboration with the Bay View Alliance (BVA) Learning Analytics Research Collaborative (LARC).

Ordered by date, the list starts with the most recent publication. Expand the tab to view the abstract and APA citation. Open resource publications are free and available upon request within each tab, while links are provided to copywritten material available from the publishers.

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Open Access Papers

Free copies are available upon request.

In this half-day interactive workshop participants addressed an on-going need to consider thoughtfully and intentionally, and sometimes reconsider, the ethical implications of the rapidly advancing field of Learning Analytics (LA). They also reflected upon how the development of local communities dedicated to ethical discourse can contribute to, and benefit from, joining a broader international Community of Transformation across higher education.

Folkestad, J., Rehrey, G., Shepard, L., Groth, D., & Hickey, M. (2019). Developing a learning analytics community for ethical discourse. Companion Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge. 9th International Learning and Analytics Conference, Tempe, Arizona.

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Institutions implementing innovative LA tools encounter cultural barriers that limit full adoption. This has led to an emerging focus on models for cultural change that aim to mitigate these known obstacles. In this practitioner paper we adopted a well-known logic model to consider short, medium, and long-term LA outcomes.

Shepard, L., Rehrey, G., Groth, D., & Reynolds, A. (2019). Evaluating a learning analytics research community: A framework to advance cultural change. Companion Proceedings of the 9th International Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference (LAK’19). Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference 2019, Tempe, Arizona.

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To successfully implement Learning Analytics (LA) systems within higher education, administrators, faculty, and staff alike should consider the human factor in adopting new technologies. In this paper we analyze the viability of our Learning Analytics Fellows Program, describe the rationale for our implementation strategy, reflect on its effectiveness by analyzing self-reports from faculty participants, and consider the broader impacts of this approach for the future.

Rehrey, G., Shepard, L., Hostetter, C., Reynolds, A. M., & Groth, D. (2019). Engaging faculty in learning analytics: Agents of institutional culture change. Journal of Learning Analytics, 6(2), 86–94.

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The purpose of this project was to augment the student advisor’s institutional and tacit knowledge with predictive algorithms specifically developed to identify risk. Using a mixed method approach, we compared the predictive evaluations with advisors’ evaluations of student performance in courses and actual outcomes in those courses.The results highlight the contribution that this collaborative approach can give to the constructive integration of Learning Analytics in higher education settings.

Fiorini, S., Sewell, A., Bumbalough, M., Chauhan, P., Shepard, L., Rehrey, G., & Groth, D. (2018). An application of participatory action research in advising-focused learning analytics. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, 89–96.

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This paper discusses the evolution of our Student Learning Analytics Fellows program, and how it addresses known barriers to successful implementation, largely dealing with culture management and sustainability. Our approach bridges the gap between bottom-up support for faculty concerns about student learning in courses and top-down administrative initiatives of the campus, such as our strategic plan.

Rehrey, G., Groth, D., Shepard, L., Fiorini, Stefano, & Hostetter, Carol. (2018). Implementation of a student learning analytics fellows’ program. In A. Pardo, K. Bartimote, G. Lynch, S. Buckingham Shum, R. Ferguson, A. Merceron, & X. Ochoa (Eds.), Companion proceedings of the 8th international conference on learning analytics & knowledge (pp.1–9). Society for Learning Analytics Research.

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This interactive half day workshop responded to the LA literature describing the benefits and challenges of institutional LA implementation by offering participants an opportunity to learn about and begin planning for a program to actively engage faculty as leaders of data exploration around the theme of 'student success'. This session shared experiences from five institutions that are actively engaged in fostering Learning Analytics Communities, identifying key issues, sharing lessons learned, and considering structural frameworks that are transferable to other institutional contexts.

Macfadyen, L. P., Groth, D., Rehrey, G., Shepard, L., Greer, J., Ward, D., Bennett, C., Kaupp, J., Molinaro, M., & Steinwachs, M. (2017). Developing institutional learning analytics “Communities of transformation” to support student success. Proceedings of the Seventh International Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference, 498–499.

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Copyrighted Articles and Book Chapters

Links are provided to the publishers site for these materials.

Beginning in 2017, we have been providing Learning Analytics (LA) data to faculty of all ranks and across multi-ple disciplines for the purpose of helping them better understand students in their courses and programs. This includes work within the Learning-Analytics Re-search Collaborative within the Bay View Alliance (Rehrey et al. 2020). In our col-laborations, we have observed how LA can shift faculty perspective about stu-dent success, cultivate more interest in assessment, expand the community of as-sessment collaborators, and develop rich narratives to be shared with stakeholders. We posit that faculty engagement with programmatic assessment benefits from using both Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) data and LA data.

Citation: Potter, J., Shepard, L., Rehrey, G., (2021). How the Use of Learning Analytics Bolsters Faculty-Led Assessment Work. Assessment Update, 33(6), 10–11.

Article Available Here

In this chapter we discuss how faculty engagement with Learning Analytics (LA) is critical to its appropriate use within departments and academic programmes. We outline the data infrastructure, staffing requirements, and administrative support necessary to implement a faculty oriented LA program and share some early results.

Shepard, L., Rehrey, G., & Groth, D. (2021). Faculty engagement with learning analytics: Advancing a student success culture in higher education. In M. Shah, S. Kift, & L. Thomas (Eds.), Student retention and success in higher education: Institutional change for the 21st century. Palgrave Macmillan.

Book Chapter Available Here

Faculty adoption of learning analytics is critical to advancing a data-informed culture in higher education. In this multiple-case study we discuss the efforts of our Learning Analytics Research Collaborative within the Cycle of Progress for Sustainable Change Framework, and its relationship to five Complex Adaptive System principles.

Rehrey, G., Molinaro, M., Groth, D., Shepard, L., Bennett, C., Code, W., Reynolds, A., Squires, V., & Ward, D. (2020). Supporting faculty adoption of learning analytics within the complex world of higher education. In D. Gibson & D. Ifenthaler (Eds.), Adoption of data analytics in higher education learning and teaching (pp. 221–238).

Book Chapter Available Here

Indiana University’s Student Learning Analytics Fellows program (Fellows) is a community of scholars using big data to investigate and better understand student learning and success during the college years. The program is our early effort to integrate the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) across our institution, encourage collaborations between offices and programs that might not normally work together, and further our collective understanding of the burgeoning field of big data, learning analytics (LA), and predictive models of student success.

Rehrey, G., Groth, D., Hostetter, C., & Shepard, L. (2019). The Scholarship of Teaching, Learning, and Student Success: In J. Friberg & K. McKinney (Eds.), Applying the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning beyond the Individual Classroom (pp. 182–200). Indiana University Press; JSTOR.

Book Chapter Available Here

Learning Analytics Directory

Open Access Papers

Developing A Learning Analytics Community for Ethical Discourse

Evaluating a Learning Analytics Research Community: A Framework to Advance Cultural Change

Engaging Faculty in Learning Analytics: Agents of Institutional Culture Change

An Application of Participatory Action Research in Advising-Focused Learning Analytics

Implementation of a Student Learning Analytics Fellows Program

Developing Institutional Learning Analytics “Communities Of Transformation” To Support Student Success

Copyrighted Articles and Book Chapters

How the Use of Learning Analytics Bolsters Faculty-Led Assessment Work

Faculty Engagement with Learning Analytics: Advancing a Student Success Culture in Higher Education

Supporting Faculty Adoption of Learning Analytics within the Complex World of Higher Education

The Scholarship of Teaching, Learning and Student Success: Big Data and The Landscape of New Opportunities