CIRTL The goal of the Artificial Intelligence and Learner Agency (AILA) project was to explore the theoretical, technical, practical, and ethical consideration surrounding the intersection of artificial intelligence and education. While much of the focus of the AI is on prediction, control, and surveillance of students, this project focused on returning control of data and learning outcomes to the learners themselves. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Adaptive Learning, Gamification, Game Theory, Learning Analytics, Heutagogy, and Chatbots are some of the main concepts that were utilized in this project.
aWEAR The aWEAR conference was the first international wearables in learning and education conference. The conference examined the promise that wearables hold to greatly improve personal learning and the performance of teams and collaborative knowledge building through advanced data collection.
BCC The BCC Program of the National Science Foundation: Community and Capacity for Educational Discourse Research proposal built a community to address three important areas: ethics in data sharing; technical issues in data sharing; and, plans for an infrastructure to support and develop capabilities in both of these.
CLA Australian Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching, Innovation & Development Scheme awarded LINK along with four other international institutions AU$320,000 to create a Connected Learning Analytics (CLA) toolkit, an open source solution for aggregating and then analyzing data from standard social media environments.
CIRTL Forty-six research universities that produce one-third of U.S. doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields now are members of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), established in 2003 with support from the National Science Foundation to improve the teaching skills and increase the diversity of future STEM university faculty members.
COCOA The COCOA National Science Foundation Big Data Grant was utilized to examine environments that many people engage in independently to learn computing, online communities, and massive open online courses (MOOCs). This activity could be very compelling as people come to these environments because they have personal goals to learn the material.
dLRN The Digital Learning Research Network (dLRN) is a $1.6m grant, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, exploring how to more rapidly move innovative research out of academic labs and into practice. Under the leadership of the University of Texas at Arlington, dLRN is focused on solving practical and pressing challenges for learner success, including underrepresented students.
Emotional Learning Analytics The Emotional Learning Analytics study examines students’ affective engagement, disposition, and performance in the use of educational videos. Data collection for this study will begin in May 2017 at the University of South Australia.
IDEAS Center The aim of the IDEAS Center project is to take the IDEAS Center, which currently exists only as a physical space at the University of Texas at Arlington, and create a digital component to it that is available to all students.
InterLab InterLab conveys deep research expertise and interdisciplinary knowledge to address intractable problems relating to human development. By utilizing interdisciplinary research, InterLab engages in complex social problems.
InSpark The InSpark Smart Science Network Project, funded by a $5.2 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was a collaboration between world-leading universities, community colleges, ed-tech companies, and learning experts to develop and deliver next-generation undergraduate science courseware.
K-12 Learning Analytics The K-12 Learning Analytics project investigated the adoption and implementation of large-scale learning data and analytics projects in schools. The goal was to develop a research-informed model that can help schools identify needs specific to their context, remove barriers to adoption, reduce overall costs, and ultimately, improve student outcomes.
Learning Analytics Series Participants that completed the Learning Analytics Series had the opportunity to learn various aspects about this exciting and growing field. The Series has ten courses that helped learners develop highly sought after data and learning science skills that are applicable to positions in K-12, higher education, non-profits, corporations, and the military. The first course will ran April 2018.
MOOCs Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) recently created a surge of interest in the future of higher education. The “massive” nature of these courses indicates that they are attracting unprecedented numbers of students. For example, in an 18 month period, leading MOOC providers edX and Coursera enrolled nearly 10 million learners in close to 1000 courses.
MOOC Research Initiative The MOOC Research Initiative was funded by an $840,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and led by Athabasca University. The purpose of the initiative was to address the pressing gap of peer-reviewed research that was created by the dramatic proliferation of MOOCs in higher education.
OnTask Scaling the Provision of Personalized Learning Support Actions to Large Student Cohorts, or the OnTask Project is a two-year project started in 2016 to addresses the challenges faced by Australian Higher institutions to improve the quality of the student experience within the context of increasing enrollment numbers over the past years.
K-12 Analytics The PK-12 Analytics Research Consortium (PARC) brought together schools worldwide to participate in a research agenda to maximize the effectiveness of technology, and to develop data modeling algorithms to increase achievement, well-being, and academic performance.
Partnerships The LINK Research Lab was partnered with various major corporation and universities to continue to expand its research profile. These collaborations provided new avenues for research and development.
PLC Faculty and staff of the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) are selected to work together in themed Professional Learning Communities under the guidance of a facilitator to explore and implement strategies, activities, and projects that improve the learning experience at UTA. Beginning Fall 2017, the PLC program is now facilitated by Collaborate UTA with the LINK Lab serving in an advisory role. More information is available at http://www.uta.edu/qep/about/index.php.
Museum The purpose of the Self-Regulation Study was to understand how the body reacts when a person needs to focus attention and self-regulate. Self-regulation is a process that requires attention to the task at hand and the ability to override an automatic response when a different response is required.
The LINK Research Lab teamed up with European and Australian partners to develop a long-term policy agenda and framework for the adoption of learning analytics at higher education institutions (SHEILA). Researchers conducted studies in the European Union and Australia, and the LINK Lab contributed research from United States higher education perspectives.
Social Media and Smartphones By looking at the use of Social Media and Smartphones LINK intended to investigate the complex interplay among social media, smartphone use, and interpersonal relationship formation.
University Networks University Networks is an InterLab project that uses a networked approach to assist higher education institutions that want to digitize. This process will help institutions efficiently and effectively transform, as well as meet the needs of the 21st-century labor market. Institutions own their transformation, but also share lessons learned with peers and work with strategic partners for tight integration and local capacity building.
Last Updated: Thursday, June 25, 2020