Learning analytics

Learning Analytics are any piece of information that can help an LMS user improve learning outcomes. Users include students, teachers, administrators and decision-makers.

Moodle Plugins

There are a number of reports, blocks and other plugins for Moodle that provide learning analytics.

Plugin	Plugin type	Standard / Additional	Useful for	Reported usage*
Logs	Report	Standard	Teachers, Admins, Decision-makers	71.4%
Activity	Report	Standard	Teachers	69.1%
Activity completion	Report	Standard	Teachers	66.3%
Live logs	Report	Standard	Teachers, Admins	55.2%
Feedback	Activity	Standard	Teachers, Researchers	59.5%
(Quiz) Statistics	Report	Standard	Teachers	53.0%
(Course) Participation	Report	Standard	Teachers	49.9%
Survey	Activity	Standard	Teachers, Researchers	45.6%
Questionnaire	Activity	Additional	Teachers, Researchers	45.3%
Course overview	Report	Standard	Admins, Decision-makers	45.0%
Course completion status	Block	Standard	Students	41.4%
Progress Bar	Block	Additional	Students, Teachers	32.0%
Events list	Report	Standard	Teachers, Admins	28.6%
Activity results block	Block	Standard	Students	26.1%
Configurable Reports (A list of contributed reports)	Block (Report Graphs filter)	Additional	Teachers, Admins, Decision-makers	22.7%
(Gradebook) Overview	Report	Standard	Teachers, Students	N/A
Ad-hoc database queries	Report	Additional	Teachers, Admins, Decision-makers	N/A
Engagement Analytics	Block, Report, Activity module	Additional	Teachers	N/A
Course Dedication	Block	Additional	Students, Teachers	N/A
Graph Stats	Block	Additional	Teachers, Admins	N/A
GISMO	Block	Additional	Teachers	N/A
Level Up!	Block	Additional	Students, Teachers	N/A
Forum Graph	Report	Additional	Teachers	N/A
Analytics Graphs	Block	Additional	Teachers	N/A

* Reported usage is drawn from the Plugins Usage Survey from 2015.

Integrations with Moodle

A number of systems integrate with Moodle to provide learning analytics information.

• Moodle Activity Viewer (MAV) (Git)
• Intelliboard

Dimensions of Analytics

Learning analytics are a concept that has been emerging under a number of different names through the past decades. Its origins lie in research in data mining and intelligent tutoring systems. LA tools can be categorised in a number of ways. The diagram below describes such tools by how deeply they are integrated with other systems (source).

See also...

• Analytics and reporting forum
• Moodle Research forum
• Moodle research page
• Logging
• Learning Analytics API specification
• Assessment Analytics working group details and issues
• Events specification
• Logging specification
• Report Builder API specification