Presented at lak16time, Edinburgh (April 2016). There is a wealth of data already captured by learning management systems, especially from courses that are well-designed to take advantage of a variety of online activities. However, analyses of such data have been largely in aggregated form. This is compounded by database tables that are unwieldy and difficult to interrogate. We present our approach to temporal analytics which combines nascent open standards for the storage and analysis of such data. As a proof of concept, we leveraged the Experience API to transform Moodle data into an informative temporal stream stored in a learning record store, and have designed and developed some representations of learning processes based on the needs of students and staff. These standards and approaches can be adopted by other practitioners and researchers to further the progress of temporal analytics.

1. xAPI and Temporality
OPEN STANDARDS TO STORE AND ANALYSE TEMPORAL LEARNER DATA
25 April 2016 | lak16time | Danny Liu, Ed Moore, James Hamilton, Yvonne-Noemi Nemes @dannydotliu danny.liu@mq.edu.au

2. Conceptions of temporality
PROCESSES AND SEQUENCES
• Reimann 2009
• Variable-based: independent acting on dependent
• Event-based: sequences of ‘events’ over time
• Zhou et al. 2010
• Student-based: sequential patterns  common learning behaviours
• Session-based: actions from a single session
• Object-based: differentiates the objects of actions
Reimann, P. (2009) Time is precious: Variable-and event-centred approaches to process analysis in CSCL research. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(3), 239-257.
Zhou, M., Xu, Y., Nesbit, J. C. and Winne, P. H. (2010). Sequential pattern analysis of learning logs: Methodology and applications. In C. Romero, S. Ventura, M. Pechenizkiy and R. S. J. d. Baker (Eds.), Handbook of educational data mining (pp. 107-
121). Florida: CRC Press.

3. ¿Porque no los dos?
3
MULTIDIMENSIONAL TEMPORALITY

4. Openness
4
STORING AND ANALYSING TEMPORAL LEARNER DATA
“…know what the top students were doing,
why they were top students… getting an
understanding of what they do differently…”
Macquarie
Open
Analytics
Toolkit
Users
AnalyticsData
“I know that what kind of articles other students
are reading I think is very useful, especially
when we are doing our assignments.”
LMS
Video
Classrooms
Mobile

5. Storing learning experience data
5
LEVERAGING XAPI
{
"id": "12345678-1234-5678-1234-567812345678",
"timestamp": "2015-04-09T07:15:42+10:00",
"actor":{
"mbox":"mailto:xapi@adlnet.gov"
},
"verb":{
"id":"http://adlnet.gov/expapi/verbs/viewed",
"display":{
"en-US":“viewed"
}
},
"object":{
"id":"http://example.adlnet.gov/xapi/example/activity"
},
"context":{
...
}
}
Custom
analytics engine
ETL tool

6. Understanding learning paths
7
EXAMPLE: SANKEY DIAGRAMS

7. Understanding learning paths
8
OVERLAYING DATA – COURSE OUTCOME
Pass
Fail

8. Understanding learning paths
9
OVERLAYING DATA – COURSE GRADE
HD
D
CR
P
F

9. Understanding learning paths
10
OVERLAYING DATA – STUDY MODE
External
Internal

10. Understanding learning paths
11
OVERLAYING DATA – QUIZ PERFORMANCE
10
0

11. ‘Understanding’ learning paths?
12
SANKEY DIAGRAMS
• Immediate concerns
• What is a session?
• When did these happen?
• How long did they take?
• What verbs are plotted?
• What are meaningful overlays?
• Is this all behaviourism???

12. Questions arising
13
FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
• Are there interesting and meaningful behaviour patterns?
• Does this reflect study strategies?
• How does this speak to learning design?
• What variables are interesting and meaningful?
• What kind of event/action/temporal granularity?

13. Questions arising
14
FOR THE LEARNING ANALYTICS COMMUNITY
• How can other dimensions be
represented meaningfully?
• What levels of context are most
important?
• How else can we mine xAPI
datastreams?
• How can we collaborate via open
standards to co-develop better
tools for practitioners?

14. 15
It takes a village
@dannydotliu
danny.liu@mq.edu.au
Ed Moore
James Hamilton
Yvonne-Noemi Nemes
Matt Bailey
Sean Brawley