Apereo Webinar Recording - Learning What Works When Scaling Analytics Infrastructure

Webinar recording available in the Apereo YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/QpGXYV_YP88

Abstract:

With student success as a primary institutional goal, NC State’s DELTA organization has taken initial steps in building a scalable analytics infrastructure. This webinar provides insights into the open source frameworks, analytics technology, and strategy required to deploy analytics infrastructure with efficient IT delivery. We will discuss planning an architecture to accommodate large amounts of data, while still providing predictions in short order. We will also touch on some work we are doing building cohorts of sub-populations to improve scalability and accuracy. In addition, we will discuss ongoing and future work to improve the infrastructure even further.

Speakers:

Lou Harrison, Director of Educational Technology Services, NC State University - DELTA

Lou Harrison received his BS and MS in Computer Science, from NC State University. He is currently Director of Educational Technology Services for Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) at NC State University, and he and his team manage, maintain, install, integrate, and develop the technology that NC State uses for teaching and learning at scale. This technology centers around Moodle, and includes WolfWare, our overarching learning management system hub, and other tools such as Sonic Foundry's Mediasite for lecture capture and Blackboard Collaborate for synchronous classes. The team also supports the organizational technology needs of DELTA.

While in the Computer Science Department, he and his team developed WolfWare (now called WolfWare Classic), an early course management system, which has been in use at NC State since 1999. He was a founding member of the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI), which first articulated a need for interoperability between learning systems and can be credited for pushing commercial learning tools developers to develop APIs that developers can use. He has served in an advisory capacity to several learning technology providers and has presented at several conferences about Enterprise Learning Technology and Learning Technology Governance. He has been an active participant in and frequent volunteer for ACM SIGGRAPH, and most recently was the chair of the SIGGRAPH Student Services Committee (S3). He is an ACM Senior Member and an ACM SIGGRAPH Pioneer.

Linda Feng, Software Architect, Unicon

Linda Feng is currently a software architect at Unicon, Inc., a leading provider of education technology consulting services. Linda has deep experience in student information systems (SIS) integration, open standards, and big data/ learning analytics, most recently as Senior Product Manager for Canvas SIS Integrations and Canvas Data at Instructure. Prior to Instructure, Linda held the position of software architect for Oracle's Student Products Division. In the last several years, she served as co-chair of the IMS Global Learning Initiative Learning Information Services & Privacy Working Groups, helping to bring a new Enterprise interoperability standard to market.

Gary Gilbert, Software Architect, Unicon

Gary Gilbert is a Software Architect at Unicon where he provides technical leadership to the integrations and learning analytics practice. He has 10+ years experience designing and developing learning systems for clients ranging from small community colleges to global publishers. Gary has been involved in numerous open source software projects including Sakai, uPortal and Moodle as well as open standards efforts such as IMS Learning Tool Interoperability. Over the last few years, Gary has served as the technical lead for the Apereo Learning Analytics Initiative (LAI).