Analytics vs. Learning Analytics

(Updated: After starting this blog, I identified that I might still decide to re-name this article to something like "Learning Analytics associated terminology" instead of "Analytics vs. Learning Analytics" just to broaden the scope related to the reading topics.)

In diving into the associated readings for the Learning Analytics session, it has now become clearer as to a distinction, yet relationship, between the discipline of "Analytics" and a much newer discipline, based on "Analytics", regarded as "Learning Analytics".

As a starting point, according to Wikipedia, "Analytics" is "the application of computer technology, operational research, and statistics to solve problems in business and industry." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytics]

Similarly, "Learning Analytics" is "the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs" ["Call for Papers of the 1st International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK 2011)"] Related to "Analytics", and simplified, "Learning Analytics" is the application of Analytics within and focused on learning environments.

Phillip J. Goldstein, in "Academic Analytics: The Uses of Management Information and Technology in Higher Education" (by the Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR)), introduces the topic of "Academic Analytics" as "the intersection of technology, information, management culture, and the application of information to manage the academic enterprise".

Goldstein, also reports how the basis of Academic Analytics (and the "research methodology for this study") relies on the thought disciplines of "business intelligence", "competitive intelligence", "data warehousing", and "information-based decision making", which also deserve to be defined here.

Goldstein also references, what sounds like an interesting resource, in the document "University of Phoenix: Driving Decisions Through Academic Analytics" (by the Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR)).



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