Do Moodle analytics have a role to play in learning design, feedback and assessment?

The project’s main aim is to investigate feedback for teaching and learning using analytics via Moodle. Moodle analytics allows institutions to accumulate information which can be used for analyzing students’ behaviour within a virtual learning environment (Romero, Ventura, &; Garcia, 2008). This information can include records of computer operations in the form of logged data of students’ activities. However, students’ activities and their e-learning interactions may vary across an institution because of the different ways course spaces are designed between schools/departments. Through Moodle analytics, it would be possible to evaluate students’ online behaviour and possibly to explore what this behaviour can tell us about how students learn online and to identify various departmental pedagogical disciplinary practices (Martin-Blas &; Serrano-Fernandez, 2009). The project focuses on the study of students’ activities and its relationship with the design of course spaces in the areas of feedback and assessment and will build on the work of San Diego and McAndrew (2008). Through this project, we will explore the potential of Moodle analytics to provide feedback to tutors about learner activities in relation to the design, structure and content of a module, and also to provide feedback to students on how they use these resources. In order to achieve this, records of learning activities through Moodle analytics need to be translated into a display that teachers can interpret easily and that students can appreciate. Studies around learning activities with Moodle will be conducted across six departments on selected modules with large student numbers.

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