ABSTRACT
Amazon recommends items we want to purchase and Netflix suggests movies that match our interests (Dietz et al, 2018), curated approaches that seem like magic—in reality, both businesses strategically use data analytics to meet their consumers’ needs better. It is no surprise then that some colleges and universities have turned to data analytics, long used in business and marketing, to find ways to support students’ needs successfully. Specifically, campuses are using learning analytics (LA), a subtype of data analytics. For example, Stanford University has developed the Open Analytics Research Service (OARS), a system that uses data visualization to help faculty monitor an individual student's learning progress across courses and adjust instruction dynamically in real time to improve each student's progress toward achieving mastery-level learning outcomes (Thille & Zimmaro, 2017).
