Learning Analytics Faculty Partnership Program

Program Purpose

Do you have pedagogical questions about your course or program, and need help gathering and assembling learning data evidence to answer them? The Learning Analytics (LA) Faculty Partnership Program is intended to catalyze evidence-based teaching and learning inquiry through learning analytics data.

Our program is aimed at supporting your pedagogical inquiry by partnering with the LT Hub’s LA team to explore actionable sources of data, and develop processes, data tools and/or visualizations to answer these questions.

Some examples of questions that can be answered using LA are:

• 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 applications of LA on the UBC Learning Analytics website.

Support Package

Selected proposals receive a support package tailored to your project. This could take many different forms, such as:

• Facilitating access to existing learning data or collecting new sources of data. For example, accessing Canvas data in a format suitable for analysis. Some Canvas tools do not provide easy access to data (e.g., rubrics, discussions) and we can facilitate access to that data. We can also assist with collecting new sources of data if there is not sufficient data to help answer a question.
• Developing data tools and visualizations. For example, developing a visualization to explore student performance in a course, aggregated by student demographics (e.g., program, year of student).
• Assisting with data analysis. For example, analyzing student performance data to identify early indicators of potentially poor course outcomes.

Eligibility

• UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan faculty are eligible to apply as Principal Applicants.
• Graduate and undergraduate students may be listed as co-applicants or additional support on the application.
• Applicants must agree that tools, processes, or findings successfully developed through the partnership will be shared under a Creative Commons and/or open-source license.
• Applicants must pass any Data Access Requests or Behavioural Research Ethics Board requirements before work commences.

Deadlines

Support packages are awarded three times per year.

An information session is scheduled for Thursday April 3rd 10-11am PDT to learn more about opportunities and to ask questions. Register here.

Adjudication Criteria

Proposals will be assessed based on:

1. The clarity of the proposed pedagogical inquiry and how well it is articulated.
2. The feasibility of achieving the inquiry through the data specified, the proposed analysis approach, and within the time requested.
3. How the proposal may contribute to facilitating inquiry and reflection for educators across the institution.
4. Alignment with the Principles for Learning Analytics at UBC.
5. Permission to access the data specified for use in the project. If required, a data request may be needed before work can begin. Assistance is available as part of the project.

Application

You can submit a Learning Analytics Faculty Partnership Program application through our request form.

Before submitting your proposal, you can also view a Word version of the application to prepare your responses.

When developing your application, please be clear about what you plan to investigate, what data is required to inform that inquiry, and how this work connects to your teaching practice.

If you have any questions about the application process or would like feedback while working on your application, please contact us at the LT Hub.