Nurturing the Connections: The Role of Quantitative Ethnography in Learning Analytics 

This talk will explore connections between two emerging fields focused on harnessing the potential of data – learning analytics and quantitative ethnography. Learning analytics is focused on the analysis of data collected from user interactions with technology with the goal of advancing our understanding of and enhancing human learning. Despite some early success stories and widespread interest, producing meaningful and actionable results is still a top open research challenge for learning analytics. The talk will first explore how quantitative ethnography can offer promising approaches that can address this open challenge in learning analytics. The talk will next discuss how progress in learning analytics can be used to accelerate the development of the field of quantitative ethnography. The talk will finally outline promising directions for future research at the intersection of learning analytics and quantitative ethnography.