Completed Key Projects

Linked Journeys: Linking learning analytics with study journey representations to understand patterns in students’ mental health
Dr Tim Coughlan, JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), 1 Year

The aim of this project is to link learning analytics data with student perspectives on the events they experience, and the impacts of these on their emotional wellbeing and progress towards study goals. The developed approach will be trialled at scale and the tools openly licenced for wider use. We would like to work with Jisc to make this approach available for integration with Jisc’s Learning Analytics Service. This project will expand the recently developed Our Journey tool to link historical data held about individual students to their journey in an interactive way.

Events from institutional analytics data (such as a student’s registration and attainment on specific modules) will become items that the student can use to populate their journey alongside the current functionality. This means that the journey will feature touchpoints where analytics can be linked or triangulated with the journey. This will enhance the interpretability of the analytics (for example, providing data on the emotional state of a student in relation to events, and data on the events that happened to a student prior to a poor assessment grade). It will also enhance the value of the journey representation as a form of analytics by mapping it to standard forms of data around attainment, progression, or withdrawal.

Evidence Cafe – MS Trust
Professor Anne Adams, MS Trust Multiple Sclerosis Trust, 1 Year

Evidence Cafe held at The Open University on behalf of the MS trust.

Civil society effectiveness – Extension of AMS 607532
Dr Jude Fransman, FCDO Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, 5 Months

This programme will test a new and innovative approach to building civil society effectiveness by generating and using inclusive data and evidence to foster a culture shift within civil society and between civil society and government/power holders to establish an ecosystem built on collective action, accountability and responsiveness to the voices of the most marginalised.

Civil Society Effectiveness – Ext of 607532 Oct 2019 – March 2020
Dr Jude Fransman, FCDO Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, 6 Months

This programme will contribute towards the attainment primarily of Sustainable Development Goal 16 and ensuring that no one is left behind in Myanmar, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. From programmatic evidence and experience, we know that taking the voices of those left behind (LNOB) to influence national and SDG decision-making spaces is no easy task, with multiple bottlenecks and power issues manifesting from the local to the global level (see the Theory of Change). These challenges are intensified when these processes happen in countries categorised as “repressive” towards civil society.