The Society for Learning Analytics Research defines learning analytics as “the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, with the goal of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which learning occurs”.
At UBC, our Learning Analytics team can help you access and make sense of learning data. We offer services and a partnership program to support faculty members’ pedagogical inquiry; to explore actionable sources of data; and to develop processes, data tools, and/or visualizations to answer your pedagogical questions.
How Learning Analytics Can Help
Learning Analytics (LA) can help you better understand and improve the learning experiences of your students. Some examples of questions that can be answered using LA include the following:
- What is the impact of a new pedagogical approach on students’ learning behaviours?
- How does a course-level intervention affect student learning?
- What students might benefit from extra support in a course or program?
- What course resources are students using?
You can read more about LA and view applications of LA on the UBC Learning Analytics website.
Our Learning Analytics Services
The LT Hub offers a range of services to help faculty access, analyze, and interpret learning data to support evidence-based teaching and learning. Whether you need assistance retrieving and analyzing data or developing new insights through a structured partnership, we provide tailored support to meet your needs.
Learning Data Access and Consultation
UBC’s online learning tools—such as Canvas—generate valuable data that can provide insights into student engagement and learning behaviours. This data includes the following:
- Data that people create when interacting with a learning tool – Interactions with course content, discussion posts, assignment submissions, quizzes, and instructor feedback.
- Data that a learning tool automatically logs about activity – Activity logs including login times, resource access, and time spent on different activities.
Our LA team can help you access and make sense of this data for your course. You can read more about learning data and how to request data on the UBC Learning Analytics website, or contact us at the LT Hub to schedule a consultation.
Learning Analytics Faculty Partnership Program
For faculty looking to engage more deeply with learning analytics, our Learning Analytics Faculty Partnership Program offers structured support for pedagogical inquiry. Through this program, we can help faculty in several ways:
- Access and analyze existing learning data or collect new data sources.
- Develop data tools and visualizations to explore learning patterns and student performance.
- Conduct data analysis to identify trends and actionable insights for improving student outcomes.
Support requests are accepted three times a year, and selected projects receive dedicated assistance from our LA team. For more details and to apply, please see the LA Faculty Partnership Program page.