There is an urgent need to develop an evidence-based framework for learning analytics whereby stakeholders can manage, evaluate, and make decisions about which types of interventions work well and under which conditions. In this article, we will work towards developing a foundation of an Analytics4Action Evaluation Framework (A4AEF) that is currently being tested and validated at the Open University UK. By working with 18 introductory large-scale modules for a period of two years across the five faculties and disciplines within the OU, Analytics4Action provides a bottom-up-approach for working together with key stakeholders within their respective contexts. A holistic A4AEF has been developed to unpack, understand and map the six key steps in the evidence-based intervention process. By means of an exemplar in health and social science, a practical illustration of A4AEF is provided. In the next 3-5 years, we hope that a rich, robust evidence-base will be presented to show how learning analytics can help teachers to make informed, timely and successful interventions that will help each learner to achieve the module's learning outcomes.
The establishment of school-based learning networks is one of the more significant recent changes in the way that professional learning and organisational change have been conceptualised. This article argues that network development requires facilitation and conceptualises this work as brokerage, a concept highlighting the tensions of working as an 'inside-outsider'. Using interviews, observations of meetings, document analysis and case studies, an understanding of the practices of a group of National College of School Leadership network facilitators employed to support network development was developed. Facilitators saw themselves as facilitating the learning of network members and fostering accountability. Positioned at the boundary of the network, connected to many other groups, the success of their attempts to access and establish a legitimate role in their networks varied from group to group. As such, some Facilitators experienced their work as disorienting. 'Communities of brokerage practice' served as buffer zones between networks and their employing organisation -a space to not only reflect upon and build an understanding of brokerage work but to evolve and develop the practice itself.Recommendations for organisations supporting a similar role are made.
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