Using Online Course Analytics To Improve Learner Engagement

As instructional designers, how can you keep a pulse on how engaged your learners are in interacting with the course content and with each other? In a classroom, you can see wandering eyes or a bored expression. In an online course, it may seem challenging to see how learners are engaging behind their computer screens. Thankfully, you can use online course analytics to gain a comprehensive view of how learners are engaging with the course. In this article, we’ll discuss some indicators of low engagement in an online course, as well as intervention tactics you can use to help learners become active again.
Before diving into the analytics of an online course, it is important to first understand the learners’ context so that you can understand the metrics appropriately. Factors such as the topic, course type (external or internal training), and learner motivation can lead to different expectations and benchmarks for learner engagement in a course. For example, some learners who are busy professionals may join a course without anticipating completion. Others may join a course with the goal to receive a certificate of completion. You can take proactive steps to understand your learners’ motivations and expectations for taking the course through surveys or profile questions. Possible survey questions include:
By understanding your learners’ motivations, you can be better informed about which metrics and thresholds in the online course analytics you will want to pay attention to. This will also lead to the types of intervention tactics you may want to use. Below are three scenarios where analytics can be used to help improve learner engagement in a course. Since every course and community is unique, we recommend that you regard these as suggestions and find ones that work best for your course.
Scenario #1: In the first week, some learners are not active
We’ve seen that the first week of a course is the most important stage for intervention, as learners who drop off here may never come back. What could it mean if a sizeable group of your learners are not active in the first week?
Possible Reasons
Intervention ideas
Immediate:
Longer-term:
Scenario #2: Learners are not submitting assignments on time
If your course using project deliverables towards completion, you can use the learning platform’s analytics to see what percent of learners submitted, read the instructions but didn’t submit, or didn’t reach the instructions at all. By using analytics and understanding why your learners haven’t submitted assignments, you can engage in targeted interventions to help them complete the course deliverables.
What could it mean if your assignment submission targets are missed?
Possible Reasons
Intervention ideas
Immediate:
Longer-term:
Scenario #3: Teams are not forming or are not very active
If you are using teams in an online course (for example, one hosted on the NovoEd platform), you can use NovoEd Analytics to see how many teams have formed and how many have joined a team. You can also see a quick snapshot of team activity within their workspaces by looking at the number of messages exchanged, meetings scheduled, and files uploaded in the Team Activities section.
What does it mean if teams aren’t forming? It could mean that participants don’t know how to create teams or don’t know how to join one. If course-long teams aren’t active, it could mean that participants don’t know how to get started.
Possible Reasons
Intervention ideas
Immediate:
Longer-term:
From measuring activity in the first week of a course to identifying the level of team activity, you can utilize online course analytics to help you identify where you can intervene to support or encourage learners to become more engaged in the course. We encourage you to try these intervention ideas and others, as you sharpen and target the tools you use to increase learner engagement in a course.
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