How do you improve your digital learning with analytics?

1 Define your objectives

Before you start collecting and analyzing data, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your digital learning. What are your learning goals and outcomes? How do they align with your organizational or personal objectives? How will you measure your success and progress? These questions will help you define your key performance indicators (KPIs) and set your benchmarks and targets. KPIs are the metrics that reflect how well you are meeting your objectives, such as completion rates, test scores, feedback, retention, or behavior change.

2 Choose your tools

There are many tools and platforms that can help you collect and analyze data from your digital learning. Some are built-in features of your learning management system (LMS), such as dashboards, reports, and surveys. Others are external tools that integrate with your LMS, such as Google Analytics, xAPI, or learning record store (LRS). Depending on your needs and preferences, you can choose the tools that suit your budget, functionality, and compatibility. You can also use a combination of tools to get a more comprehensive and holistic view of your data.

3 Collect and analyze your data

Once you have your objectives and tools in place, you can start collecting and analyzing your data. You can use different methods and techniques to gather and process your data, such as quantitative or qualitative, descriptive or inferential, or predictive or prescriptive. You can also use different levels and dimensions of data, such as learner, course, program, or organization. The main purpose of collecting and analyzing your data is to gain insights and understanding of your digital learning performance, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges.

4 Act on your insights

The final step is to use your insights to improve your digital learning. You can use your data to identify gaps, problems, trends, and best practices in your digital learning. You can also use your data to make informed decisions, recommendations, and actions to enhance your digital learning design, delivery, and evaluation. You can also use your data to communicate and share your results, achievements, and feedback with your stakeholders, such as learners, instructors, managers, or clients.

By following these steps, you can improve your digital learning with analytics. Analytics can help you optimize your digital learning strategy, content, and experience, and ensure that you are meeting your learning objectives and outcomes. Analytics can also help you demonstrate your value, impact, and return on investment of your digital learning.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?