«Adaptation, Adoption and Learning Analytics Pilots in Latin America»
Pedro J. Muñoz MerinoProfessor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and LALA’s coordinator. (English)
Abstract
In regions such as Latin America, the application of learning analytics techniques is underrepresented. Higher education institutions in this area can benefit from the use of educational data to aid in academic decision-making to improve the educational process. Depending on multiple factors, the learning analytics tools and solutions to adopt and how to adapt them should be different. Along these lines, the European LALA project tries to extend the use of learning analytics in higher education institutions in Latin America. This talk presents a summary of the main results of this project. The LALA framework is presented as an aid for the identification of needs and the adoption of learning analytics solutions in the Latin American area. A summary is also presented of how tools for counseling and early prediction of academic dropout have been adapted and adopted in different institutions of higher education in the region, based on tools made in Europe. Finally, several pilots of the use of the different tools are presented with hundreds of teachers and thousands of students, with conclusions on the effectiveness, usefulness and impact of the tools and some lessons learned.
Bio
Pedro J. Muñoz-Merino is a Professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He is accredited by ANECA as a Full Professor. He obtained the title of Telecommunications Engineer from the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 2003 and he is Doctor of Telematics Engineering since 2009 (UC3M). He is the coordinator of the LALA project, a project funded by the European Commission for the adoption of learning analytics in Latin America. He has participated in more than 40 research projects at the international and national level, also including several contracts with companies, being the Principal Investigator in several of them related to learning analytics, educational data mining and adaptive systems. He is the author of more than 140 scientific publications including more than 40 in journals indexed in the JCR. In addition, he has coordinated the development and deployment of different learning analytics tools.
