Enacting a successful Learning Analytics initiative at any institution presents multiple challenges, including administrative buy-in, investment of time and money, guidance and standards for handling data, and faculty collaboration, to name a few. What steps can we take, then, to get from managing large amounts of nebulous data to using it strategically to drive change in the classroom?

Learning Analytics at the University of Notre Dame (ND) started by building a solid data infrastructure of collection and storage–utilizing campus software, platforms, and resources to make data more accessible to stakeholders. As a part of the university-wide data ND initiative, Learning Analytics utilizes governed, secured data from the university data warehouse and contributes data to the warehouse on the usage of our Learning Management Systems. Learning Analytics at ND has evolved into a new Office of Learning Analytics that works collaboratively with academic technology specialists, faculty, and researchers to provide course-level learning analytics data to program, college, and institutional levels to improve internal operational assessment and external applied research.

Learning objectives:

• Evaluate the challenges and opportunities of establishing learning analytics initiatives
• Examine successful data architecture/infrastructure
• Appraise the future evolution of learning analytics