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While many colleagues were on vacation in July and August, team learning analytics (LA) had to work. In the coming academic year, three LA projects will start at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ (UU) and the necessary preparations had to be made. For example, the LA applications needed to be designed, but we also had to make sure that the privacy of those involved would not be violated, not unimportant!

For a complete overview of the steps we take before an LA project can start, we refer to our LA roadmap. We are almost ready with the preparations and would like to let you know which LA projects will be starting in September.

The teacher dashboard.

The goal of this project is to adapt (in near real-time) course materials to what students need short-term. For this purpose, a dashboard has been developed that visualizes the progress of students and how they use the course material offered. This information comes from the learning management system (LMS) Blackboard. Examples include whether students logged into Blackboard and when they used the provided course materials.
Previous research has shown that the degree to which students are active in an LMS is related to if students complete a course (; ). Students who show limited activity in the LMS in the first few weeks of a course are at higher risk of failing that course (; ).
Previous LA pilots () have shown that group-level analysis alone does not provide sufficient information.
Therefore, in this project we want to extend group-level analysis with individual-level analysis. In the coming academic year, two teachers within a course of the Beta faculty in the Pharmaceutical Sciences course will test the dashboard. More information can be found on the LA project page.

Course evaluation dashboard (DACE).

In 2021, the decision was made to start using Caracal as a university-wide evaluation system. This required a technical redevelopment of the system. Prior to this, an inventory was made within the faculties of the needs around evaluation. Discussions with various stakeholders revealed that in addition to Caracal outcomes, there was also a need for process and policy information, information about (student) experiences, opportunities for improvement, and educational quality. Also mentioned were panel discussions, key figures, exam analyses, correspondence with the program committee, teacher reflection and unsolicited feedback.
Looking at multiple information sources gives a much richer and more complete picture of teaching. The proposal in the advisory report was therefore to purchase or develop a platform that serves as a dashboard and brings together various sources of information. More data can be linked to this platform step by step, so that the complete quality assurance overview of an educational unit (such as a course or program) can be found in one place.
In this project, we will pilot such a platform: the Dashboard for Course Evaluation (DACE) with the following core functionalities: 1) visualizations of Caracal evaluations, 2) visualizations of student activity in the learning management system (LMS), 3) historical progression, and 4) a link to notes and other documents.
In the coming academic year, course coordinators of a course in the Social Sciences faculty, Education Sciences program, will try out the dashboard. For more information, please see the LA project page.

The F-ACT dashboard

The F-ACT dashboard was developed specifically to address individual differences in academic writing skills and support needs among students. There are several examples of student competency dashboards available in the literature that demonstrate the usefulness of such dashboards (; ;). For example, there is evidence that students who use a competency dashboard demonstrate higher level competencies and complete their study program more frequently ().
The purpose of the F-ACT dashboard is to support students' development of academic writing competencies, and to give students ownership of feedback practices and how they study. The F-ACT dashboard is available across multiple courses so that competency development can be tracked over a longer period of time.
The dashboard conveniently collects all assessments and feedback received in one place and shows which competencies and related skills a student scores high and low on. This way students know what they are doing well and where they need to pay more attention. In addition, the F-ACT dashboard provides a number of suggestions for resources (such as websites, videos, and articles) per skilll for students to consult. Thus, the dashboard was developed specifically for students, unlike the teacher dashboard and DACE.
In the previous academic year (2023 - 2024), we ran a pilot in which we were able to technically implement the F-ACT dashboard and receive input from students and teachers on the usability of the F-ACT dashboard. This feedback was used to create a new version of the F-ACT dashboard, which will be introduced in this academic year (2024 - 2025).
The project runs in the premaster and bachelor programs of the educational sciences program (faculty of social sciences).
More information can be found on the LA project page of the F-ACT dashboard.