Week 10

Analytics and the Institution

Phil Ice: Multilevel institutional application of analytics

Developing an organizational culture or mindset that favours analytics over intuition is difficult. Analytics-based companies such as Palantir (see here for a short overview of the organization that has been called the next billion-dollar company) need to develop organizational processes and corporate culture that emphasize the power of data. This, however, is not without concerns, especially in the educational field. Corporate learning and development departments, K-12 and university classrooms often value the "softer aspect" of learning—the joy of discovering, the intuitive intervention on the part of a talented educator, or simply the thrill of seeing people improve their capacity for new careers. How can learning analytics account for those less tangible aspects of learning? How can organizations create a culture that is simultaneously creative and still data driven?

This week we'll begin to get at the challenges between balancing a data and analytic mindset with the creativity needed in learning and knowledge activities.

Readings

Authors@Google:Ian Ayres [Video].(2007). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/5Yml4H2sG4U (Author, Super Crunchers)

Ice, P. (2011, March). Multilevel institutional application of analytics [Video]. Presented at the first International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, Banff, Alberta.

Activity

In your discussion forum posting this week, reflect on the challenges of balancing data-focus with creativity. Instead of only posting text, experiment with video or with images to communicate the relation between these two elements.