1. MediaWiki for OER and Learning Analytics
Understanding learning resources, and learners
Simon Knight @sjgknight, user:sjgknight
http://people.kmi.open.ac.uk/knight/

2. Open Educational Resources
• Open Educational Resources (OER) – learning
materials for free use and reuse

3. Open in OER
Mediawiki provides facility for:
• Verbatim reuse (copy or
transclude)
• Adaptation (of the page, or
versioning)
• Remixing (combine bits of
content, through transclusion
or copying)
• Redistribute (widely available
platform, export options to
PDF, etc. )
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lego_DNA.jpg

4. OER & Paradata
• Paradata – track
use, not just hit
counters but
favourites, tags,
linked content,
etc. User
characteristics
also inform.

5. ORBIT – examples & issues
• Mediawiki OER site for teacher education and CPD
• Mediawiki chosen as sustainable platform/format,
allows remixing, etc.
• Includes user contributions, commissioned
materials, and other CC/OGL licence materials
• Links ‘tools’ and ‘pedagogy’ to lesson resources
using templates
• Includes OGL videos
• Allows book export to PDF
http://orbit.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki

6. ORBIT – examples & issues
Books/PDF export:
– Heading numbers
– Table/div formatting
– Transcluded sections
Versioning
– In many cases we wanted multiple versions of articles
– Challenging to maintain with transclusion – run with
“{{adaptedfrom|Purposes and characteristics of whole-class
dialogue|WholeClassIntro|…xyz…}}
Reference management
– Scope to ‘wiki’ references in OGL is great (updateable policy)
ProveIt is great…
– But wiki-wide referencing needed (tracking of refs too)

7. • learning analytics is “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” (LAK11) – in
informal, and formal learning
contexts (LAK12
The learner side – who is interacting,
and how?

8. Why, What, How of LA
• Why – we can capture data on/offline, if we
can use this support students so much the
better
• What – attendance, social
network/interactions, discourse analytics,
dispositional analytics, grades, etc.
• How – user submitted, learning platform trace
(mediawiki, moocs, VLEs, etc.)

9. WikiLytics
• WikiTrust
• Collaboration Diagram (&
deeper metrics)
• Edit counts (or, edit size, or
time spent editing)
• Feedback Tool (with actions –
“To improve the
trustwothyness…”)

10. LA for paradata
OER Potential:
• What learner skills do you need to access this
resource?
• Who can help you with this resource?
• What will you learn from this resource?
• How can you contribute to this community?
• What pathways do similar learners take to this
resource?

11. MediaWiki for OER and Learning Analytics
Understanding learning resources, and learners
Simon Knight @sjgknight, user:sjgknight
http://people.kmi.open.ac.uk/knight/

12. • Intro to paradata/reflection on EduWiki conference
http://www.nominettrust.org.uk/knowledge-
centre/blogs/wikipedia-education-and-tracking-how-knowledge-
used
• paradata may facilitate ‘linkedup’ OER – for personalised,
connected learning repositories
http://www.nominettrust.org.uk/knowledge-centre/blogs/finding-
knowledge-linking-open-educational-resources
• Some ways of tracking open content in the wild – this is a key
challenge for CC licence, measuring ‘impact’
http://www.nominettrust.org.uk/knowledge-
centre/blogs/measuring-impact-tracking-open-content-wild
• OGL licence content and issues with PDFs
http://www.nominettrust.org.uk/knowledge-centre/blogs/creative-
commons-open-government-licensing-and-pdfs

13. Mediawiki context
• http://en.wikivet.net/Veterinary_Education_O
nline
• http://edfutures.net/Main_Page and
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Main_Page