Opportunities for Adopting Open Research Data in Learning Analytics

The relevance of open research data is already acknowledged in many disciplines. Demanded by publishers, funders, and research institutions, the number of published research data increases every day. In learning analytics though, it seems that data are not sufficiently published and re-used. This chapter discusses some of the progress that the learning analytics community has made in shifting towards open practices, and it addresses the barriers that researchers in this discipline have to face. As an introduction, the movement and the term open science is explained. The importance of its principles is demonstrated before the main focus is put on open data. The main emphasis though lies in the question, Why are the advantages of publishing research data not capitalized on in the field of learning analytics? What are the barriers? The authors evaluate them, investigate their causes, and consider some potential ways for development in the future in the form of a toolkit and guidelines.