As a final wrap-up for the RISE project we ran a short lunchtime seminar this week for OU staff from the Library and across the University. It was a chance to say thanks to the people who were involved in RISE and to provide a summary of the work of the project.
We were fortunate to be able to have the wider university context set for us by Will Woods from IET talking about the University’s work on Learning Analytics which is now a big priority for the University. Using slides prepared by Kevin Mayles (who is leading the Learning Analytics project) it was interesting to see how closely this links with the activity data work. We’ve been sharing our experiences from RISE (and the knowledge we’ve picked up about other projects in the strand such as Leeds Met’s Star Trak:NG project) with them and expect to contribute the data we’ve accumulated into the Learning Analytics data warehouse.
For RISE we put together two short presentations. One covering the background to the project and summarising the steps we took. This takes you through how we went about the project, the technical solution we developed and some of the lessons learnt. It also gives a bit of information about how we are taking RISE forward.
The second presentation, by the RISE Project Manager, Elizabeth Mallett, covered the reaction by users to the ideas of recommendations and to the recommendations that they were being shown by RISE.
After the presentations we had a really useful question and discussion session. It was a good lunchtime session and a chance to talk to a slightly different group of people, including academics, about some of the ways that activity data could be used to provide more personalised and relevant services to users. I’m sure it has set off a few thoughts in people’s minds about how this approach can lead to improved services.
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