☰

History of AAT

The Academic Analytics Tool (AAT) was introduced in 2011. Ever since then, AAT has undergone many revisions and a lot of functionalities have been added, and design enhancements have been made. Details about several phases including the design, evaluation and project extension are mentioned below:

Design

The Academic Analytics Tool (AAT) connects users with Learning Management System (LMS) databases, allowing them to query the underlying records and log data. AAT supports different database management systems such as Postgres and MySQL. LMS databases are grouped by the Moodle version, with courses accessible depending on the user’s relationship with the database. Courses within a version can be grouped into datasets. AAT allows users to build, save and share patterns of LMS data and export the query results. These patterns, along with datasets, are stored as part of a project. A project can be “run” to export the results from one or more patterns. These patterns are made up of “concepts”, “roles”, “attributes” and “limits”. These pattern data can be aggregated, combined and also exported. Additional actions can be performed on a saved Pattern, such as Cloning (making a copy of a Pattern to edit or share), Chaining (linking two Patterns together to expand the results) and Analysis (performing calculations such as average, sum, count, min and max on a result set of a Pattern to analyze data in more detail.

Evaluation

The evaluation process was necessary for learning designers and other experts to provide new ideas for enhancements of usability and functionalities. In 2014 and 2015, the AAT was evaluated by a number of learning designers at Athabasca University. The evaluation process consisted of a demo, hands-on training sessions, feedback collection and iterative improvements based on user suggestions. It was through user suggestions that features such as the help section on the left pane of each page and the tooltips were added into the AAT tool.

Further information of the three stages of the evaluation process is listed below:

      Demo and Training: Users were introduced to AAT and provided with exercises to explore its functionality.
      Feedback Collection: During and after training sessions, users provided feedback on usability and suggestions for improvements.
      Implementation of Feedback: Recommendations were analyzed and incorporated into subsequent revisions of AAT.

Project Extension - New Updates

For the latest phase, the project now has enhanced tool flexibility, accessibility, and technical upgrades for user/data administration. Four major extensions that have been completed include:


      1. Visualized Results: Pattern and analysis results can be displayed using a variety of visualizations, in additional to a tabular display of result data.
      2. “Bring your own data” (“BYOD”) infrastructure: Users can upload or connect to external LMS databases, as well as manage uploaded or connected data, and give access to those databases to other users within the tool.
      3. Moodle plug-in: A plug-in enables data extraction from Moodle installations, which can then be uploaded to AAT through the “bring your own data” module.
      4. Template management functionality: Templates map learning concepts to database objects. New templates can be created within the tool if a new version of an LMS is released that includes database changes. A new template can also be created or an existing template edited when a user is working with a customized database.