Understanding learning in the online environment using selected web analytics tools
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | DisCo 2018 : Overcoming the Challenges and Barriers in Open Education : 13th conference reader |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Keywords | Learning analytics; web analytics; Google Analytics; web courses; heatmaps |
| Description | The paper analyze the possibilities of using Google Analytics and Smartlook, as two tools for web analytics in the educational context, to point out the possibilities and, on the contrary, the limits of such an approach and its relation to learning analytics as such. Measurement and analysis of web courses brings a number of interesting options, both towards redesign and innovation (data with intervention potential), as well as purely research character. In the introduction, we focus on the relationship between web analytics and learning analytics. Next, we'll describe Google Analytics in terms of its educational opportunities. This description is related to already existing research papers that deal with this topic. The following is a Smartolook tool that lets you create heatmaps and capture the cursor movement on a web page, which again relates to the ability to analyze student interaction with the learning material. Using the tools described above, it is not possible to perform the learning analytics as an activity leading to intervention, for example to identify problematic students but rather to find out what users of the course are studying, their technical equipment, to uncover their learning habits and patterns of behavior online environment. These analyzes are illustrated on data from the course taught at the Faculty of Arts of the Masaryk University in Brno - Creative work with information. |