Speaker: Matt East, senior learning technologist, Anglia Ruskin University. Talis Elevate, a new resource level analytics and collaboration tool, allows academics to easily interrogate micro level analytics at resource and student level. Using Elevate on a wide variety of courses and disciplines, we have proved/disproved a number of assumptions about student engagement and resource/feedback interaction.

1. What do students actually look at?
Using Talis Elevate to analyse
student interaction and engagement
with resources and feedback
6 March 2018 | ICC, Birmingham

2. Next-generation
learning environments
What do students actually look at?
Using Talis Elevate to analyse student interaction and engagement with resources at granular level
6 March 2018 | ICC, Birmingham
Matt East (@mdleast)
Senior Learning Technologist
Anglia Ruskin University

3. >Hobbywear VLE 2009-2017
>No real data gathering in VLE
>Grab and go data approach
>Inbuilt data dashboard
>Endless housekeeping of data
Backstory

4. Dashboards- Student Engagement

5. >Retention
>Progression
>Engagement (and what this means)
>Underpinning practice with evidence pedagogically
>No clear/coherent strategy for data gathering and use
>Grab and Go
>Use what we have, rather than find what we can get
(and why/how to use)
The challenges we face

6. >Level/pitch
>Misrepresentation/storytelling
>Understanding the algorithms
>UX
>Accessibility
>Trends/action
>Context
Making sense of the data
The problem with analytics

7. The curse of the spurious data

8. Talis Elevate - what is it?

9. >Granular level analytics
>Resource/page/section/student
>Snapshot data
>Accessible/easy to digest and understand
>Consistent analytics display
>In-resource activity/discussion/annotation
>Docs/media upload (and now YouTube)
>Offline access to resources
Talis Elevate

10. Elevate

11. Elevate- Snapshot data

12. In Canvas

13. >Coaching and performance in football
(distance learning) [10 students]
>Psychology (3rd year) [70 students]
>Forensic science (2nd year/Masters)
[118/ 6 students]
>MSc Sports science - blended learning
[13 students]
>Biomedical science (1st Year) [116 students]
>MSc Sports science (second cohort)
[22 students]
The project-
Who got
involved

14. >Ascertain how students are interacting
with resources
>Prove/disprove various hypothesis
>Gauge a better understanding of the best
method of resource delivery
> [Demonstrate to the University that some documents produced centrally really weren’t useful for
students and needed review]
>Confirm, are students actually reading
anything, and when/how
What we
aimed to find

15. The projects

16. Students
don’t read
the module
guide
https://pollev.com/mdleast

17. Students
don’t read
the module
guide
2nd year (100+) DL Course (10) 1st Year (100+)

18. Students don’t engage
Week 1 Week 4 Week 6 Week 9
1st year, large course

19. Students leave work to the last minute
Student A - the returner Student B: Lastminute.com
Distance Learning Course

20. Common
trend of
learning
approach
Engagement and attainment research WIP
2nd year students, large course
Low engagementMid/high engagementHigh engagement

21. Students
only interact
if there’s an
assessment
involved
MSc course, 22 students

22. Findings

23. What did we prove/disprove?
• Passive Engagement – Not always
• Little repeat business- Pretty much
• Module guide doesn’t work as designed- Absolutely!
• Only looking at assessment information- Yep
• Cramming (before lecture and before assessment)- Seems to be a common trend
• Tail off on engagement through semester- Alarmingly so with F2F, DL less so
• Pick up at end (exams/assessment period)- Spikes at exam/assessment period
• Preferred resource delivery?- Greater engagement with media objects than text

24. > Passive Engagement - Not always
> Little repeat business - Pretty much
> Module guide doesn’t work as designed - Absolutely!
> Only looking at assessment information - Yep
> Cramming (before lecture and before assessment) - Seems to be a common trend
> Tail off on engagement through semester - Alarmingly so with F2F, DL less so
> Pick up at end (exams/assessment period) - Spikes at exam/assessment period
> Preferred resource delivery? - Greater engagement with media objects than text
What did we prove/disprove?

25. Creating
Taxonomies
of learners-
WIP
The Surfer
Returns back to the site regularly by activities, a vareity of resources,
assessment activity
Assessment focused
Student decides to learn all the content on the course just before the assessment,
and doesn’t bother look at much beforehand
The hoper...
There is no page content nor links to other resources yet students return regularly to the
course page, particularly during stress periods (such as assessments) looking for support.
The let down
On confirmation of their course students rush to view the page content, and on
finding nothing, leave, rarely to return

26. >Academics move towards bite size elements of resources
>Screencasting lectures and content
>Individual/group interventions based on interaction
and engagement
>Deconstruction of key resources like Module Guide
>Active learning strategy for FST
>Refinements to the dashboard
>Development of Elevate!
ChChChChChChanges

27. >Longitudinal study into student engagement throughout a
degree life on a Team Based Learning Course
(Milner, N., 2018)
>Evaluation of Student Engagement with Feedback: Feeding
Forward with Feedback (Gordon, D., 2017)
>How do I compare thee? An evidence-based approach to the
presentation of class comparison information to students using
Dashboard & Engagement analytics. (Keyes, H,. Harvey, A,.
East, M, 2018)[WIP]
Elevate - enabling new research

28. Thank you!
Any questions?

29. Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND.
Matt East
Senior learning technologist
Matt.east@anglia.ac.uk
Faculty of Science and Technology
Anglia Ruskin University
T 08451962363
T @mdleast
www.talis.com/elevate