STEER: Student Tracking for the Evaluation of E-learning Resources
STEER: A graph showing the path a student has taken through some Physics 1A material.
Overview
Valuable information about the way that e-learning resources are used in practice may be obtained by tracking the way that users interact with online materials. This type of data can be helpful in future course design, by providing useful pointers about what works and what is less successful.
The STEER projects widens the remit and scope of the previous e-Learner Tracking project by looking at a more diverse selection of courses:
- Physics 1A: Foundations
- Ecclesiastical History 2Bh: Popular Religion, Women and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
- Psychology 1
- Psychology 2
Project Status
This project ran from Summer 2005 to Summer 2006 and was funded by the University of Edinburgh's e-Learning Project Fund.
Project Contacts
Dr Judy Hardy, EPCC, School of Physics and Astronomy (Project Manager)Video Demos
The following links will open a new window. These video demos require Adobe's Flash Player.
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Overview of Tracking
:
Judy Hardy, Project Manager at the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Center, gives an overview of tracking.
[Length: 4m 35s,
Size: ~1.7MB]
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Visualisation of tracking results to reveal routes through material
:
Jon Hill, an Applications consultant at Edinburgh Parallel Computing Center
describes the spatial and temporal visualisations that he has constructed
from the raw tracking data obtained during the 2005/06 run of the course.
[Length: 5m 41s,
Size: ~2.1MB]
Further Information
More information on the project can be found at the project's website.
Publications
- Simon P. Bates, Judy Hardy, John Hill and David McKain, How design of online learning materials an accommodate the heterogeneity in student abilities, aptitudes and aspirations (submitted paper), Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Journal Issue 2 (due 2007).
- Judy Hardy, Simon Bates, David McKain, Kirsty Murray, Jessie Paterson, Brendan McGonigle, Lorenzo Vigentini, Andy Jackson, The modus operandi of the next generation e-learner; an analysis of tracking usage across the disciplines, in the Research Proceedings of the 13th Association of Learning Technology Conference (2006).