VII Jornadas eMadrid "Education in exponential times". "Open Analytics in an Open Source ecosystem". Miguel Pellicer. Entornos de Formación. Fundación APEREO. 05/07/2017.

1. Open Software for
Learning Analytics
LASI’17
Miguel Pellicer, CTO @ EDF

2. APEREO
FOUNDATION

3. What is Apereo?
● Membership Organization
● Legal: New Jersey 501.c.3
● Elected Board of Directors
● Global Membership + Partnership ESUP-Portail in France.
Mission
● Reduce the overhead of collaboration.
● Manage collective intellectual property.
● Provide shared services that reduce friction.
… to assist and facilitate educational organizations which
“collaborate to foster, develop, and sustain open technologies
and innovation to support learning, teaching, and research."
Apereo Foundation

4. Apereo Foundation - Members

5. Apereo Foundation - Software and services

6. Why Open Source?
● Cost
● Suitability
● Control
Unpicking CONTROL
● Upgrade paths
● Support options & portability = CHOICE
● Innovation & Collaboration
Why an open platform?
● Neutral and unbundled.
● Flexibility and choice of components.
○ Example: Jisc UK national analytics service
● Prepared for future development
Transparency
● Open source, open standards, open algorithms
Apereo Foundation - Openness

7. Learning Analytics today
Learning Analytics
Defined as “the measurement, collection,
analysis and reporting of data about learners and
their contexts, for purposes of understanding
and optimising learning and the environments in
which it occurs.”
Focused on the student and their learning
behaviors
Primary audiences are students and instructors.
Data: Demographics, grades, course outcomes,
behaviors, LMS engagement, click paths, time on
task.
Strategic drivers: Retention, graduation,
employability, “Student Success”
Institutional Analytics
Defined as a process for providing educational
institutions with the data necessary to support
operational and financial decision making.
Focused on the business of the institution.
Primary audience is institutional
management/executives
Data: Demographics, course enrollment, course
outcomes, course and instructor evaluations,
graduation rates
Strategic drivers: Improve content, improve
course effectiveness, improve services and
business practices

8. Apereo Foundation - Open Analytics Platform
Goals of an open analytics
infrastructure.
It should support:
● Collection and Storage of a
variety of data
● Usage of data for analytics,
reporting and visualization.
● Interoperability through Open
Standards.
● Use of Open Software, Models
and Processes where
appropriate.

9. APEREO
LEARNING
ANALYTICS
PLATFORM

10. Learning Analytics Platform
Source: https://www.apereo.org/communities/learning-analytics-initiative

11. Learning Analytics Platform
Source: https://www.apereo.org/communities/learning-analytics-initiative

12. Apereo Learning Analytics Initiative
Software Components
● OpenLRW (Event collection & Storage).
● OpenDashboard (Visualization & Reporting)
● Student Success Plan (Intervention & case management)
● Learning Analytics Processor (Data analysis). Dropped from LAI.
● Open Source Notifications Platform - University of Edinburgh

13. Learning Record Store - OpenLRW (MATTHEWS)
A Standards-based learning record store warehouse with support for learning event and
supporting data.
Implementation
● MongoDB
● Java 8 / Spring boot
Key Standards
● IMS Caliper
● xAPI
● IMS OneRoster
Currently under INCUBATION, is most likely to exit incubation first.
Source: https://github.com/Apereo-Learning-Analytics-Initiative/OpenLRW

14. OpenDashboard
A web application that provides a framework for displaying visualizations and is accessible
via IMS LTI.
Implementation:
● AngularJS
● MongoDB
● Java 8 / Spring boot
Currently under INCUBATION.
Source: https://github.com/Apereo-Learning-Analytics-Initiative/OpenDashboard

15. OpenDashboard
Source: https://www.apereo.org/content/student-pulse-visualizations-learning-analytics-open-dashboard

16. OpenDashboard
Source: https://www.apereo.org/content/student-pulse-visualizations-learning-analytics-open-dashboard

17. OpenDashboard
Source: https://www.apereo.org/content/student-pulse-visualizations-learning-analytics-open-dashboard

18. OpenDashboard

19. Project updates on the Learning Record Store Warehouse
Project updates
● No longer just an LRS; Includes SIS data (Supports IMS OneRoster).
● Consolidated backend to just MongoDB.
● Traditional and AWS-centric options.
Roadmap
● Stability & process improvements.
● Continue development of xAPI to Caliper mapping.
● Improve API querying and filtering support.
● AWS-centric option.

20. Project updates on OpenDashboard
Updates
● Student pulse.
● I18N.
● Administration user interface.
● Multi-Tenancy.
Roadmap
● Improve look & feel
○ Administration user interface.
○ Mobile
● Separate client into standalone package.
● Separate admin into standalone package.

21. Student Success Plan overview
Updates
● Case management system/intervention.
● Support for internationalization.
● Communication platform for advisors.
SSP as a Learning Analytics Component.
● Intervention model of Analytics
● Tool provider sends learning event to the LRS.
● Data is analyzed, students are classified based on historical results of similar
students.
● Early Alert in SSP for “at risk” students.
Roadmap
● More integration with Analytics
● More internationalization as it becomes needed.
● Amazon EC2 and RDS solutions stamped and made available
● Analytics Reporting / Dashboards.

22. Project updates on Learning Analytics Processor Update
Updates
● Apache Hadoop ecosystem already provides much of what was envisioned for
Apereo LAP.
● A dormant project which will likely be discontinued.

23. Open Source Notifications Platform
The University of Edinburgh is developing an open source notifications platform for
higher education, work in progress.
● Is not under the Learning Analytics Initiative but suits really fine.
● The Notifications Backbone
○ An enterprise-wide notification system which:
■ Securely imports, store and distributes notifications
■ Integrates with
● key sources of notifications (publishers)
● the most popular receiving mediums (subscribers)
○ Provides a UI for service management and support
○ Potentially gives users choice of receiving mediums
○ Communication platform for advisors.
Currently they are looking for partners, collaboration and engagement to make it
sustainable.

24. IMPLEMENTATIONS UNDERWAY
Implementations.
● University of Notre Dame.
○ 12K+ students = 20M events
○ Predictive analytics - early alert objectives
● University of Michigan.
● North Carolina State
○ 34K+ students = 30M events
○ Predictive analytics - modified marist model
○ Student risk scores within 2 weeks of start.
● JISC
● French ministry of Education - U. Lorraine.
The year ahead
● Expand the student pulse.
● Develop integrations with LMSs / SISs (Data Loaders)

25. Flexibility and choice of components

26. Feel free to be part of Apereo!
Useful links
● Apereo website: https://www.apereo.org/
● Apereo LAI: https://www.apereo.org/communities/learning-analytics-initiative
● Projects source: https://github.com/Apereo-Learning-Analytics-Initiative
● LAI lists:
○ Analytics: analytics[at]apereo.org
○ OpenDashboard
■ opendashboard-user[at]apereo.org
■ opendashboard-dev[at]apereo.org
○ OpenLRS
■ openlrs-dev[at]apereo.org
■ openlrs-user[at]apereo.org
○ SSP
■ ssp-dev[at]apereo.org
■ ssp-user[at]apereo.org

27. ENTORNOS DE FORMACIÓN S.L
Entornos de Formación makes knowledge transfer and training easier through
the use of information technologies in educational businesses and institutions
throughout 5 continents.
We rely on a qualified professional team devoted to the management of our
client's educational technology and training methodologies, with experience
since 1998.
We work mainly in 4 large areas: Educational technology, digital content,
consultancy, and support.
Apereo Commercial Affiliate > 30 deployments

28. Thank you so much
Any Questions?
Special thanks to:
● Ian Dolphin - Apereo Foundation.
● Patt Miller & Xiaojing Duan - University of Notre Dame.
● Linda Feng & Gary Gilbert - UNICON
● Martin Morrey - University of Edinburgh