Mª de los Llanos Tobarra (UNED) and Salvador Ros (UNED): Analyzing the Students Behavior and Relevant Topics in Virtual Learning Communities

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1 Página 1 emadrid Seminar on Big Data in Education Education Faculty National Distance Learning University (UNED) Friday, January 17, 2014 Organizes: emadrid Network Next Friday, January 17, 2014, a seminar on Big Data in Education will have place in the Education Faculty (Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid) at the Spanish National Distance Learning University, UNED. emadrid is a R&D program among Madrid research groups working on Research and Development of Technology-Enhanced Learning. It is coordinated by the Carlos III University of Madrid and composed by the Autónoma University, Complutense University, Politécnica University, King Juan Carlos University of Madrid and the Distance Learning University UNED. The different talks schedule is as follows: 15:00 15:30 Mª de los Llanos Tobarra (UNED) and Salvador Ros (UNED): Analyzing the Students Behavior and Relevant Topics in Virtual Learning Communities 15:30 16:00 David Gago (CSEV) and Daniel Torres (CSEV): Towards an Adaptive-Learning Scenario: The CSEV Experience in Learning Analytics 16:00 16:30 Javier García Zubía (Universidad de Deusto) and Pablo Orduña (Universidad de Deusto) Analyzing the use of remote laboratories. Case study: WebLab-Deusto Where? National Distance Learning University (UNED) Ciudad Universitaria Campus Assembly Hall of the Education Faculty C/ Juan del Rosal, Madrid

2 Página 2 How to get there? Detailed information: By subway and by bus: From the subway station of "Ciudad Universitaria" (Line 6) you can either walk (1.8 km towards northwest) or take the "U" bus and get off at the last stop "Facultades UNED" (end of the line). By car: from the M-30 ring-road (clockwise) take A-6 and then exit by C/ Sinesio Delgado and get in the University Area (from the north by the CIEMAT). Passing the roundabout take the first to the right and at the end take another right until you get to the Education Faculty (UNED).

3 Página 3 Summary of talks 1. Analyzing the Students Behavior and Relevant Topics in Virtual Learning Communities The constant development of new Internet platforms is shifting the users role of such platforms, from viewers to main actors. In the field of education, faculty can take advantage of these new technologies for the design of pedagogical contents. The face-to-face observation of behavioral patterns allows faculty to detect and track new problems, and to apply possible corrections which would improve the learning/teaching process. However, with a distance methodology, these observations are not possible. When forums are created they are intended to discuss particular topics. It is relevant to monitor that the topics discussed are the intended ones in order to achieve course objectives. To tackle this shortcoming, our work studies the dynamics of relevant topics in on-line asynchronous discussion forums, and this is done by analyzing the large amount of students interactions generated in the forums of our Learning Management System (LMS). In particular, we analyze the students behavior patterns in the forums of a distance subject, and characterize the relevant topics and subtopics from the forums messages belonging to two academic years. From the statistical and graphical results obtained, a set of valuable recommendations are also given. 2. Towards an Adaptive-Learning Scenario: The CSEV Experience in Learning Analytics Concepts like openness, adaptation and collaboration are progressively replacing standardised, one-size-fits-all and uni-directional delivery approaches that were commonplace so far. In order to make the transition to a new paradigm, full adaptation is needed to achieve an optimal implementation of resources devoted to pupils, professors and education managers. In this sense, learning analytics are a crucial vector of change, as it is mainly based on using traces of information generated in the learning process for its optimisation. By using these techniques, a stream of advantages arises enabling a higher degree of customisation and adaptation in education. This speech will, one the one side, be focused on identifying and highlighting the advantages associated to LA, and, on the other hand, on illustrating recent related CSEV experiences, which are mainly aligned with the delivery of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Given the huge amount and different type of data to be managed, MOOCs provide an appropriate arena for LA implementation. 3. Analyzing the use of remote laboratories. Case study: WebLab-Deusto A remote laboratory is a software and hardware tool that enables students to access real laboratories through the Internet. Students can do hands-on-lab sessions as if they were using the equipment directly, but using it at home or in other locations. WebLab-Deusto is a tool that enables the development, administration and maintenance of remote laboratories. One of its features is the automatic storage of the interactions between students and the equipment,

4 Página 4 so it becomes possible to perform analytics on them. This way, it is possible to measure how the students interact in their hands-on-lab sessions. The talk will be focused on showing what data is stored (working on 60k processed registers a since 2009), the WebLab-Deusto Analytics dashboard for data visualization and the analytics that can be performed on top of it. Additionally, other analytics outside the dashboard will be presented, such as the social network analysis performed on top of the data usage, and factors to be taken into account when sharing the laboratories automatically with other universities. Keynote Presenters Biographies Mª de los Llanos Tobarra (UNED): Mª de los Llanos Tobarra received her M.Sc. degree in Computer Science in 2004 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2009, both from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain. She is currently a Lecturer at the Control and Communication Systems Department at the Spanish University for Distance Education, UNED. Her interests include security support in distributed systems and the analysis of social networks for e-learning. She has co-authored more than 20 publications in international journals and conferences on these topics. Salvador Ros (UNED): Salvador Ros is an associate professor in the Control and Communication Systems Department at the Spanish University for Distance Education (UNED) and a vice dean of technologies in UNED s School of Computer Science. His research is in learning technology and its application to learning processes, including service-oriented platforms, learning analytics, and multimodal learning environments. Ros holds a PhD in engineering from the Industrial Engineering School at UNED. He s a senior member of IEEE and a member of the advisory board for STEM - Horizon David Gago (CSEV): David Gago is currently Director of Outlook and Analysis of CSEV. David also worked for 3 years as Advisor for the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Information Society (SSTIS) in Spain and as top consultant in different consultancy firms for more than 6 years. He had a degree in Economics (Prize for Excellence, Class 1993, University of Alcalá), MSc in Economics (University of Warwick, UK) and PhD in Economics (University of Alcalá, Awarded XI Victor Mendoza Prize). As CSEV Director of Outlook and Analysis, David work is based on promoting research on virtual learning, detecting new and innovative patterns, challenges and technologies, being Learning Analytics one of the most remarkable ones. In this sense, Learning Analytics is a key and strategic pillar in CSEV current and short term activity, both from a conceptual perspective (i.e. the third edition of Learnovation Day was devoted to LA), and an applied standpoint.

5 Página 5 Daniel Torres (CSEV): Daniel Torres is currently Director-General of CSEV. He is expert in the area of ICT uptake, as well as in the delivery of open innovation processes in education. As Director-General of CSEV he is involved in implementation of innovative technologies and methodologies in learning processes, which Learning Analytics are one of the most outstanding examples. Previously, he worked as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Communication Technologies (INTECO, ), Deputy Director-General of Telefónica Procesos y Tecnología de la Información ( ), Project and ebusiness Development Manager at Telefónica de Contenidos and Corporación Admira Media ( ), General Manager of Halconviajes.com ( ), Head of Corporate Human Resources at Telefónica S.A. ( ), Deputy Executive Vicepresident for Business Development at Telefónica del Perú ( ) and Head of Business Promotion and Strategic Planning at Telefónica Internacional ( ). Daniel has a degree in Telecommunications Engineering, an Executive MBA from the IE BUSINESS SCHOOL ( ) and an Executive MBA from the ISEM Fashion School (University of Navarra ( ). Pablo Orduña (University of Deusto): Pablo Orduña is researcher and project manager in DeustoTech, the technological research center of the University of Deusto. He has worked on different projects in Ambient Intelligence and Technology Enhanced Learning. He works full time on research projects, while has occasionally involved in teaching (MSc in Deusto, PhD in UNR in Argentina, GSP in Singularity University in Silicon Valley). He got his PhD in 2013 in the University of Deusto, being a visiting researcher at MIT and UNED. He's the lead developer of WebLab-Deusto since 2004, being awarded with the MIT TR35 Spain 2012 for this work. Javier García Zubía (University of Deusto): Javier García Zubia is Doctor in Computer Sciences by the University of Deusto, and he currently is a full professor in the Industrial Technologies Department of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Deusto. His main research topic consists on the design, deployment and evaluation of educational remote laboratories. He is an IEEE Senior Member.