LACE - Creating a Community on Learner Analytics and Educational Data Mining - Structuring the Discourse

Abstract

Discussions on MOOCs, on digital textbooks and new authoring and publishing models, on privacy issues related to digital practices, etc. have led to increased interest in Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining. The European 7th Framework Coordination and Support action project, LACE (Learner Analytics Community Exchange) is devoted to structure this discussion and build communities that explore the potentials and pitfalls of the unprecedented availability of data related to education and learning. This paper gives a basic introduction to Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining, presenting a generic framework and outlining how this will be used to support community building and discourse on different aspects of these themes within schools, higher education and the workplace. Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining both only recently brought to the top of the educational technology trend lists, this paper argues that a discourse and co-design approach would be the best to follow for the broad range of identified stakeholders.