UT’s Academic Affairs division recently joined Unizin, a member-based organization of 14 academic institutions focused on improving university learning data analytics, according to a July 2 press release. 

The University first considered joining Unizin in the 2010s when it was founded, said Jeff Freels, Academic Affairs’ director of academic policy and research, but opted not to due to a lack of initial support. Unizin offers its own modeling for cleaning and processing Canvas data and returns it to members in a way that makes it more usable. 

“Around 2022, especially post-COVID, there started to be a lot more questions about the University’s Canvas data and what we could do with it,” Freels said. “There’s a growing body of research, which pretty strongly suggests that data from learning management systems like Canvas can be really useful in providing better support services for students and for enhancing learning and engagement.” 

Freels said the University will start to use the program this fall and is expecting complete integration by early 2025.

Unizin CEO Bart Pursel said Canvas will still look the same to students. He said Unizin takes the data from Canvas and advises the University on where to give support.

“What the Unizin data platform does is it brings together data behind the scenes to help identify students that might be on sort of a downward trajectory in a class,” Pursel said. “If students go dark in the data for some amount of time while the rest of the students are active, we like to think of these as clues for faculty members and advisors that might be able to proactively reach out and assist students in those (kinds) of spaces.” 

One of the applications students will be able to use is My Learning Analytics, a tool created by the University of Michigan, one of Unizin’s founding members. Freels said UT is excited to utilize this program so students can see their progress in comparison to other classmates in a specific course. 

“My Learning Analytics and other applications we hope to develop from Unizin data will tell students, ‘Hey, maybe you should spend more time reading the materials in the Canvas course, or you haven’t clicked these videos,’” Freels said. “It’ll actually give students very specific tips on what they can do to increase their engagement and therefore increase their likelihood of being successful in the class.” 

Art Markman, the vice provost for Academic Affairs, said he attended Unizin’s annual board meeting for administrators from the institutions involved. He said it was great to hear how different schools have contributed data-collecting methods to the organization and that this collaboration improves all member schools. 

“(Unizin) really enables us to share best practices with other schools and to learn from (them) so that we’re not all going in alone,” Markman said. “Being part of this consortium is not just about the data. It’s also about having all sorts of faculty, staff and other people at the University engaging in these communities to help bring more of this knowledge across the whole campus.”