Hello everyone! My A3 assignment looks into what is probably my favourite ‘learning technology’ – data analytics! Although this field is enormous, and growing rapidly, there isn’t much available for day-to-day use educators, and educational administrators. I was inspired to complete this A3 after doing a data analytics exercise for my own institution, which was very well received!
See below video for my elevator pitch, and link for my venture pitch!
FEEDBACK: Beautiful images and information are presented in an organized and professional way. This is consistent with your high-quality work in general, Ally! I also love learning analytics and data visualization, my biggest hesitation about this product is the lack of integration with learning software, and the data needs to be manually entered if I understand correctly? “After selecting a data type, the user is then prompted to enter the data into the per | data platform.” As someone who deals with learning data daily, I would not use another software if it required me to export and upload the data separately, to be honest. I recently had to use Tableau and did not enjoy that component of the experience. My work is trying to get away from manual processes as much as possible. Did I understand this component correctly or is software integration available? Thanks!
Mev, thanks for your comments. YES you are right about the manual data entry. The reason for this is actually twofold, one is the security component, two is the actual focus of these analytics. If an instructor just wants to know ‘how often are my students in class’ or ‘what were the grades on this assignment’, ‘how many students left the program after year 1’ that data is generally readily available. I’d like per | data to hone in on the types of things that educators are not already tracking with data, meaning this manual data entry would have to happen anyway. As an example in curricular analytics, my program has 16 ‘categories’ that must be showcased in the curriculum in order to maintain accreditation status, but nowhere in the program is it tracked which courses could attribute to which categories, and certainly not which assignments can be attributed to a category… If this was tracked, these findings would allow for immediate recognition of over-saturated (or under-saturated) categories within the curriculum (I’ve just gone through this accreditation process so these wounds are still raw!) In general giving programs an idea of how they are fitting their approach into the whole of their practice. However, I do understand the “one more thing on my plate” feeling that could definitely dissuade users. I think what may be a happy medium is pivoting per | data’s services to provide more consulting or “help” getting this information presented, i.e. per | data staff that could provide services to use the platform if needed. This ties in nicely with Nathan’s suggestion of additional support and services, as well. Thanks for your feedback!
REVIEW
I think you are absolutely right that data can be better used in education. I think this is a real missed opportunity for educators and I believe per | data could really make this data accessible. One thing I would ask you to reconsider before investing is the way in which data makes it into the platform. It sounds like users have to enter the data themselves, which was kind of touted as a security feature since unnecessary data was not collected. I can see the desire for control over what data is entered into a third-party platform on the part of the customer, but I think ease of use will be impacted greatly if the data entry is not automated. DOMO (an analytics platform) actually teamed up with D2L and has all the data sets from an institution’s instance of Brightspace pushing directly into DOMO so that the data is always fresh and there is no requirement to fiddle with data sets. DOMO is therefore a major competitor of yours and I can see them winning contracts due to this automation feature. Fortunately, thet only seem to have this arrangement with D2L, so if per | data could interface with a variety of popular LMSs, it would have an advantage in the market. One key strength of per | data is that it acts as an entry point into learning analytics (LA). I like how users can start off on a very small scale as they start to delve into LA for the first time. I am confident that once any institution gets going with LA, it becomes addictive and they will want more and more. I think per | data’s real value is in introducing institutions to LA and then securing larger contracts with them as they develop the thirst for me. For this reason, I would also suggest there be more opportunities for learning about LA through lesson modules, coaches, etc.
Nathan, I put a bit of my response to this ‘data entry’ qualm in my response to Mev above, but the jist is that much of what I picture per | data to be tracking is not already stored anywhere else, so this data entry step can’t really be avoided. Something to articulate further with the pitch, clearly! And indeed, thinking more about this focus does have me agreeing with you on approach: if per | data is meant to be an introductory LA tool, then there should be some help along the way. This could also assist in taking this data entry issue off the table, for those who would prefer it. A great value-add to the service, and a different revenue stream as well, so I appreciate your thoughts! Partnership with LMS services is an option, but not one that I’ve considered as it’s a bit out of scale with what per | data offers, but maybe a “far future” goal!
Hi Ally, I can see your perspective on the data entry issue and this makes sense; looking at data that is not already being tracked is a key differentiator. I have also used the D2L/DOMO integration in the past and found that it actually did not do a whole lot for me. To your point, it was just packaging data that we already had and putting it into fancy dashboards. It was cool, but there were no new insights, unfortunately.
FEEDBACK: Hi Ally, thanks for sharing. You have created a very professional elevator pitch and visually appealing venture pitch! Having and analyzing data to make informed decisions makes sense in all industries. Data analytics are slowly making their way into school divisions, the school district I work for has implemented Microsoft Power BI. Power BI scales from individuals to the organization as a whole. Power BI collates all data on students and allows teachers to sort and filter to find what they are looking for. I think you may be underestimating the number of like competitors that already have a foothold in the educator sector.
Thanks Meagan for your comments! Seems I will want to emphasize this venture in the direction of learning analytics, rather than simply data visualization. Certainly, data visualization software like Microsoft BI already exist. I’m curious, what have you been able to learn about your students through Microsoft BI? Have these learnings led to any changes?
Hi Ally,
First off, your Venture pitch is beautifully presented and very professional looking. Bravo! In terms of inputting the data, I wonder if there is a way for users to import existing data bases. For example, data can be collected and stored in excel or captured with sharepoint / teams etc. The number of screens of which the user may need to go through in order to get their data could turn people off as well. I think some sort of integration with existing Microsoft software or Google suite could be advantageous for those working in the education sector.
[REVIEW] This is a great idea, especially in the evolution of on-boarding third party agencies to cover the workload of internal workforce. School boards nation-wide are looking for ways to continue offering their staff with the same experience but with cutting costs, and this situates itself really nicely, and easily translates value to the purchaser who is also the end-user in this case. I especially liked the example template, that gives potential users a good idea of what to expect but leaves them inquisitive enough to want more. The pitch itself rests within an up and coming market, that has exploded but as is often the case the education industry is slow to uptake so there maybe a window to scale this up if it is ready quickly. When I think about analytic tools I think about Tableau and Power BI, how does your platform differentiate and carve out its piece of the market? What I would like to see is some projections on return and sales for the first year to five years. A standard entry market projection would help a potential investor see whether it was worthwhile; especially considering how many school boards there are in Canada, not to mention the private school system that may be earlier adopters than the public streams.
REVIEW: Hi Ally. I was intrigued by your venture pitch. It was well thought-out and professional. You have hit on a definite pain point. I agree that education should make better use of the data that is continuously being collected. I have had experiences where we were directed to take a deep dive into data from provincial testing, for example. Usually we are given a booklet full of numbers and are basically left to figure it out. Not everyone has the background to be able to do it. With your application, it would make data so much more accessible to all educators. Perhaps they will start to find data useful. As others have mentioned, I am concerned about data entry and if there could be a way to import data from other applications. Also, would you consider a larger group license so that school divisions could make per│data available to all teachers?
REVIEW: Hi Ally! I really like this idea. It sounds like a great solution to what is a problem in the education sector and I also think that if this was successful taking off in education, I imagine the model could be used in other sectors and industries that also struggle with creating meaningful data dashboards. I know if my own role in higher education, we are seeing a huge shift towards data and it has taken a long time to build meaningful dashboards that are helpful to inform our work, so i think anything to make this process easier is a great idea!
As an investor I would have like to know a little more about the exact type of data that would be helpful for schools. What types of specific problems could this data help to solve and are their some specific examples of when data has helped to solve a problem? I think this would help to make the pitch even stronger 🙂 Great work!