In the present day digital world there is a huge explosion of data, which has made it important for the academic world to analyze this data and derive meaningful information out of it. The data consists of attendance record of students, test results and use of online content for teaching. The information derived from such data will help to enhance the learning of students.

Exploding data to affect students

Virtual education is gaining importance in India with more and more schools and colleges adapting it to improve the performance of the students. As a result the number of students who will search for information in the digital world such as virtual classrooms, online libraries and online journals is expected to increase significantly in a couple of years time. Lot of content is now made available over the internet by researchers and institutions on a daily basis. In addition to this, there is even user generated data. Unless there is a mechanism to constantly analyze this data and help students to identify useful data, they will be lost. It will be difficult for students to determine which is useful, reliable and accurate. The whole data become useless and do not contribute positively in the learning process.

Data mining is gaining importance

There is a positive trend towards online learning. This shows how important data mining is in the process of improving learning outcome. There are different kinds of data that can be collected such as the interaction between the students and the content, the period for which the student has been reading content, understandability of the content, etc. There are different analytic systems that gather the information about the type of content students search for, the amount of time they spend on a source of information, the number of logins to the content etc. one such system is the Moodle and is similar to how Google analytics operate. SNAPP, a latest tool assists in evaluating social networking sites; extend of connectivity, and external learners. Discourse analysis tools helps in analyzing the qualitative aspects of conversations and discussion and rank the contribution made by each of the learners in depth and substance based on the topic under discussion.

Social networking: a relevant source for data

In case of Universities and colleges, a better source to collect data on students learning is the social networking sites such as FaceBook, Twitter, etc, where students engage in conversations and discussions on regular basis. It is a better place to understand the nature of interaction between students and how well they are interconnected in terms of their education. Even though privacy issues are important, the analysis can be done in the networks inside the institution and hostels.

Such a system of data analysis is not present in the Indian education institutions. Even in the developedcountries data mining and analysis in social networks is absent and many of the universities and colleges have not realized the potential of such methods. Most of the internet users have an account in at least one of the social networking sites, and the users share everything that happens to them every day. There is high probability that students will share matters about their studies and learning over such networking sites. So it is the most suited place to look for valuable data about students and their learning.

Influence of inputs on output unknown

The present day education system is a closed one, where there is no exchange of information between the education system and the outside world. All we can do is to measure the performance of the students based on the marks they score in examinations. We do not have mechanisms to understand how inputs are transformed into outputs. There is no clear understanding on which practices should be continued and which should be discontinued.

Need for understanding the system and importance of analytics

Analytics is important if meaningful changes need to be introduced in the field of education. There are widespread concerns about the present condition of the education system in the country. Over the past decade there is increased demand for introducing changes in the education system. But how can we introduce changes in a system, where we lack proper understanding about the components of the system. So the changes that we introduce may not produce the desired result, which may even damage the system. First of all we need a foundation based on which changes can be introduced. In the case of business world, it is the information that helps to take decisions and it is the same in the case of education too. Thus analytics assumes importance in the field of education too.

Taking informed decisions

We can bring about changes only after getting a proper understanding about the inputs that goes into the learning process, its influence and the outcome. Such changes should be backed by relevant information which will lead to improve output.

Role of Cloud Platform

There are many analytic tools that are present over the cloud. It will help in indexing, searching and analyzing the unstructured data and thus will help in improving the learning outcomes. The cloud platform is of great use as far the academic community is concerned. It gives easy access to researchers to use different tools to get a better understanding of the students’ behavior on the internet, in terms of their academic activities.

Need for collaboration and resources

There is a need for collaboration and large pool of resources so that radical changes can be brought for the betterment of the education system in the country. Universities, colleges, schools, researchers and other stakeholders in the field of education should join hands to form a community cloud that will cater to the needs of the students. The government and the various education boards should take up this matter seriously and encourage institutions, universities and researcher to come up with such community clouds.