Comprendiendo el potencial y los desafíos del Big Data en las escuelas y la educación

Abstract

In recent years, the world has experienced a huge revolution centered around the gathering and application of big data in various fields. This has affected many aspects of our daily life, including government, manufacturing, commerce, health, communication, entertainment, and many more. So far, the education has only little benefited from the big data revolution. In this manuscript, we review the potential of big data in the context of education systems. Such data may include log files drawn from online learning environments, messages on online discussion forums, answers to open-ended questions, grades on various tasks, demographic and administrative information, speech, handwritten notes, illustrations, gestures and movements, neurophysiologic signals, eye movements, and many more. Analyzing these data, it is possible to calculate a wide range of measurements of the learning process and to support educational various stakeholders with informed decision-making. We offer a framework for a better understanding of how big data can be used in education. The framework comprises several elements that need to be addressed in this context: Defining the data; formulating data-collecting and storage apparatuses; data analysis and the application of analysis products. We further review some key opportunities and some important challenges of using big data in education.