Learning analytics dashboards are increasingly becoming about learning and not just analytics - A systematic review

Abstract

This systematic review explores the emerging themes in the design and implementation of student-facing learning analytics dashboards in higher education. Learning Analytics has long been criticised for focusing too much on the analytics, and not enough on the learning. The review is then guided by an interest in whether these dashboards are still primarily analytics-driven or if they have become pedagogically informed over time. By mapping the identified themes of technological maturity, informing frameworks, affordances, data sources, and analytical levels over publications per year, the review identifies an emerging trajectory towards student-focused dashboards. These dashboards are informed by theory-oriented frameworks, designed to incorporate affordances that supporting student learning, and realised through integration of more than just activity data from learning management systems – allowing the dashboards to better support students' learnings processes. Based on this emerging trajectory, the review provides a series of design recommendations for student-focused dashboards that are connected to learning sciences as well as analytics.