North Carolina State University Graduate Certificate in Learning Analytics

• In Event: Graduate Programs in Learning Analytics Workshop: Core Competencies, Curriculum, and Instruction

Abstract

The Graduate Certificate in Learning Analytics (GCLA) is a fully online, analytics-oriented, certificate program offered by the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences in the College of Education at NC State. The creation of this program addresses a critical and current need in education as the use of learning technologies and digital resources, and as a consequence new sources of data, continue to expand. This program provides foundational knowledge and hands-on experience in Learning Analytics (LA), a computational research methodology for understanding and improving learning and the environments in which it occurs.

The goals for the Online Graduate Certificate in Learning Analytics are guided by the North Carolina State motto and mantra: Think and Do. The GCLA aims to have students 1) think deeply about Learning Analytics as an emerging discipline for understanding and improving learning, and 2) develop the technical skills necessary to do something with the knowledge gained.

The following learning outcomes are the cumulative product completing the Graduate Certificate in Learning Analytics program and are addressed in each course through readings, discussion, interactive case studies, and independent analysis. Throughout the program, students will be able to:
Conceptual Foundations: Describe Learning Analytics as a discipline and how it has been applied to important problems, questions, and issues in education;
Data Sources & Measures: Identify and appropriately use educational data sources and associated measures;
Tool Proficiency: Efficiently and effectively apply up-to-date software and tools (i.e. R, Tableau, Gephi, etc.) to implement LA workflows for preparing, analyzing, and sharing data;
Processes & Techniques: Understand and apply analytic processes and computational techniques in order to understand and improve learning and the contexts in which learning occurs; and,
Communication: Clearly communicate methods, analyses, findings, and recommendations that provide actionable insight into learning contexts for a range of education stakeholders.

The Graduate Certificate in Learning Analytics (GCLA) is composed of 12 credit hours of online, graduate-level coursework and consists of the following courses:
ECI 586 (fall): Introduction to Learning Analytics is designed to provide students an overview of the field of Learning Analytics. Students learn principles of good data visualization, are introduced to a range of analytical techniques, and gain experience communicating findings to a diverse audience.
ECI 587 (fall): Machine Learning in Education will introduce students to applications of Machine Learning in educational settings. Students will learn to conceptualize educational problems, build and evaluate models, and work with a wide range of algorithms and methods to address those problems.
ECI 588 (spring): Text Mining in Education provides students with an introduction to text mining concepts, applications in educational contexts, and applied experience using methods such as tf-idf analysis, sentiment lexicons, topic modeling and classification.
ECI 589 (spring): Analyzing Learning Networks will introduce students to social network theory and methods and their application in researching educational contexts. Students will learn to calculate network statistics, visualize network properties and use modeling to discover underlying structures and factors impacting their development.

Authors

• Shaun B. Kellogg, North Carolina State University
  Presenting Author

• Shiyan Jiang, North Carolina State University
  Presenting Author