CRA Releases Report on Data-Intensive Research in Education
By CRA Staff
The Computing Research Association (CRA) has recently released a cumulative report from two workshops held by CRA and supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on big data in education. Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, was the intellectual lead for this effort.
Held in January 2015, the first workshop, Towards Big Steps Fostered by Big Data Science, focused on determining the conditions for success in data-intensive research by studying effective partnerships within science and engineering. NSF-sponsored exemplary projects from geological, engineering, biological, computational, and atmospheric sciences were featured in order to categorize data-intensive research within these fields.
Held in June 2015, the second workshop, Advancing Data-Intensive Research in Education, focused on discussing current data-intensive research initiatives in education and applying heuristics from the sciences and engineering to articulate the conditions for success in education research and in models for effective partnerships that use big data.
The goal of the report, Data-Intensive Research in Education: Current Work and Next Steps, is to inspire and foster continuing dialogues about how best to move forward with data-intensive research in education. Seven themes surfaced from the two workshops as significant next steps for stakeholders.
The seven themes are:
- Mobilize Communities Around Opportunities Based on New Forms of Evidence
- Infuse Evidence-Based Decision-Making Throughout a System
- Develop New Forms of Educational Assessment
- Reconceptualize Data Generation, Collection, Storage, and Representation Processes
- Develop New Types of Analytic Methods
- Build Human Capacity to Do Data Science and to Use Its Products
- Develop Advances in Privacy, Security, and Ethics
To learn more, see the Towards Big Steps Enabled by Big Data Science website and read the cumulative report.
