InLOC has been taking up more and more of my non-CETIS time, and along with other pressures, I have not got round to posting here for two whole months. Here are my good intentions…
What does “Analytics” Mean? (or is it just another vacuuous buzz word?)
“Analytics” certainly is a buzz word in the business world and almost impossible to avoid at any venue where the relationship between technology and post-compulsory education is discussed, from bums-on-seats to MOOCs. We do bandy words like analytics or cloud computing around rather freely and it is so often the case with technology-related hype words […]
Modelling Social Networks
Social network analysis has become rather popular over the last five (or so) years; the proliferation of different manifestations of the social web has propelled it from being a relatively esoteric method in the social sciences to become something that has touched many people, if only superficially. The network visualisation – not necessarily a social […]
Open Source and Open Standards in the Public Sector
Yesterday I attended day 1 of a conference entitled “Public Sector: Open Source” and, while Open Source Software (OSS) was the primary subject, Open Standards were very much on the agenda. I went in particular because of an interest in what the UK Government Cabinet Office is doing in this area. I have previously been […]
How to do Analytics Right…
There is, of course, no simple recipe, no cookie-cutter template and perfection is an unattainable… but there are some good examples. The Signals Project at Perdue University is among the most celebrated examples of analytics in Higher Education at the moment so I was intrigued as to what the person behind it would have to […]
MOOC is not a dirty word… at least for the student
There seems to be a lot of animosity toward MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) at the moment, but I wonder how many of those nay-sayers have actually taken a MOOC? From a student point of view, a MOOC is a wonderful opportunity to try something for free, with no obligation if it doesn’t work out, or if circumstances force a change of mind. In any case, if MOOC is a dirty word, why are thousands of students flocking to take them?
Snapshots on the Changing Landscape of “Open …”
A little bit of text mining on a fairly large number of blogs with an educational technology (or technology enhanced learning…) makes a neat set of snapshots on “open …”. Considering the words following “open” from January 2009 to the end of October 2012 shows the following distribution (where words with a relative frequency of […]
Thoughts on a huge social media strategy
Whether you’re trying to flog wares, advertise consultancy skills or simply have a big ego; it seems that we all want to abuse social media for a cause. I find it interesting that we all choose to use different social media services and guess that our strategy depends on on many factors such as what […]
Will Analytics transform Education?
Effective use of data is vital for success in today’s business world. In education, Analytics (or Learning Analytics) is becoming a hot topic, promising to disrupt and transform education and learning. I have written an article to address some current trends and issues on analytics in education for TEL-Map, a European funded support action project, […]
At the end of the JLeRN experiment
The JLeRN experiment was a toe dipped in the learning registry, a trial at different approach to sharing information about learning resources and how they are used that focusses on getting the information out there and not on worrying over the schemas and formats in which the information is conveyed. That experiment (JLeRN, not the […]