Tag to track? Analytics to measure the impact of educational policies

Analytics or the utilisation of user data to enhance education derives from business intelligence and has received considerable attention over the last view years (Cooper, 2012; Goldstein & Katz, 2005). In the context of institutional research it is argued that data can aid the decision making, implementation and analysis of policy and change (e.g. Saupe, 1990), and that new forms of online data collection makes the incorporation of educational data more accessible and analysable for this purpose (e.g. Campbell & Oblinger, 2007). A London based HEI recently introduced two educational policies to enhance the student experience which had considerable implications for the use and uptake of technologies to support learning, teaching and assessment (LTA). Longitudinal user data from one of the core technologies the virtual learning environment (VLE) to support LTA has been collected, using customized page tagging and traditional methods, which allows a comparison before and after the introduction of the policies and to visualise its impact. This presentation/paper will present some of the findings which indicate that the data collection methods used demonstrate the impact of both policies. The implications and various degrees in which this is visual will be explored in more detail together with a discussion on the findings.