The field of learning analytics recently attracted attention from educational practitioners and researchers interested in the use of large amounts of learning data for understanding learning process and improving learning and teaching practices. In this chapter, we introduce content analytics – a particular form of learning analytics focused on the analysis of different forms of content related to learning. While several publications provided brief overviews of content analytics, the goal of this chapter is to define content analytics and provide a comprehensive overview of the most important studies in the published literature to date. Given the early stage of the learning analytics field, the focus of this chapter is on the important problems and challenges for which existing content analytics approaches are suitable and have been successfully used in the past. We also reflect on the current trends in content analytics and their position within a broader domain of educational research.
Vitomir Kovanovic
University of South Australia
Content analytics: The definition, scope, and an overview of published research
Book chapter
Open access
Published
In Lang, C., Siemens, G., Wise, A., & Gasevic, D. (Eds.). Handbook of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining, Pages 77-92. Society of Learning Analytics, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Publication year: 2017