Educational technology and eLearning

We have been applying human-centred design principles and methods to the design and evaluation of educational technologies in a number of different innovative ways. Our work on the design of Learning Analytics systems (funded by HEFCE) culminated in the first student-centred learning analytics dashboard in the World to be designed and evaluated with and by students, presented at the premier conference in the area (LAK19). The dashboard was integrated into the delivery of 4 undergraduate modules, the design using a novel approach of trying to understand the reasons why students want to study at university and mapping their engagement and predicted outcomes to these motivations (with the underlying analysis done via decision trees), with weekly personalised notifications and feedback. Students were given the choice of how to visualise their data and the majority appreciated how the system could support their learning and said that it would influence their behaviour. 

A‌bove: desktop view of part of the Learning Analytics Dashboard we developed.

Above: mobile view showing 2 of the visualisation methods.

We have continued this work, investigating the use of lecturer facing dashboards and visualisations for curriculum review. As part of a Jisc funded project, we have investigated the types of questions that module lecturers and degree programme teams want to ask of learning data, how best to support reflection with analytics and how this can be used to inform learning design/curriculum enhancement, longitudinal evaluation and improve the student experience. This was predominantly conducted using a combination of contextual interviews and think-alouds, conducted in staff offices. This has culminated in a recent Book Chapter published by Springer.

Other related work includes a study into the Usability of Virtual Learning Environments, including a systematic mapping study that performed searches on five electronic libraries to identify usability issues and methods that have been used to evaluate e-learning platforms, and an evaluation of a VLE platform resulting in a number of recommendations to enhance its interface design, system usability, and subsequent learning performance of users.

Key papers

• de Quincey, E., Parker, M. (2021) User-centred guidelines for the design of curriculum analytics dashboards In: Sahin M., Ifenthaler D. (eds) Visualizations and Dashboards for Learning Analytics. Advances in Analytics for Learning and Teaching. Springer, Cham.
• de Quincey, E., Briggs, C., Kyriacou, T. and Waller, R. (2019) Student Centred Design of a Learning Analytics System. In The 9th International Learning Analytics Knowledge Conference (LAK19), March 4– 8, 2019, Tempe, AZ, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 10 pages.
• Abuhlfaia, K.M. & de Quincey, E. (2019) Evaluating the Usability of an e-Learning Platform within Higher Education from a Student Perspective. The 3rd International Conference on Education and E-Learning (ICEEL 2019).
• Abuhlfaia, K.M. & de Quincey, E. (2018) The Usability of E-learning Platforms in Higher Education: A Systematic Mapping Study. BCS HCI 2018 in Belfast, 2nd - 6th July 2018.