HELA work meeting held

01. 03. 2022. / Project

On Monday, February 28, 2022, a hybrid work meeting was held within the "HELA – Improving HEI maturity to implement learning analytics" project, coordinated by the Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI) in cooperation with four external associates from leading European universities in the field of informatics, educational and related sciences: Prof. Hendrik Drachsler, PhD, Goethe University, Germany, Prof. Bart Rienties, PhD, Open University, United Kingdom, Prof. Wim Van Petegem, phD, Ku Leuven, Belgium and Sandra Kučina Softić, PhD from the University Computing Centre, University of Zagreb. The concept map of learning analytics and metadata descriptors were presented at the meeting as the main result of the first project period, and the methodology for developing a maturity framework in a hybrid environment was also presented, as it is the main focus in the second project phase.

The work meeting was held at FOI and online via Big Blue Button, it was attended both physically and online by members of the FOI research group. The work meeting was held with the aim to present all project results achieved during the first project phase (01/03/21-28/02/22), but also to start a discussion on activities to be carried out in the second project phase (01/03/22-31/08/23).

The agenda of the meeting was:
- Overview of the activities carried out and the results achieved in the first 12 months of project implementation,
- Presentation of methodology for the development of the maturity framework,
- Discussion related to the Research Data Management Plan.

Project leader, Prof. Nina Begičević Ređep, PhD, together with the project co-leader, Prof. Diana Šimić, PhD, presented the accomplished results of the first project period and the research activities that were carried out to achieve the first two project objectives:

Objective 1: Identify use cases and gaps in use of LA in a blended educational environment in higher education (HE) at the level of institutional policy, study programs, courses and lectures and

Objective 2: Identify resources necessary to implement LA in a blended educational environment at levels of institutional policy, study program and course.

It is important to emphasize that within the first project period, 6 conference papers were presented at the International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation - ICERI, Central European Conference on Information and Intelligent Systems - CECIIS and International Conference on Information, Communication and Electronic Technology – MIPRO. A research paper for publication in a journal was accepted to Journal of Information and Organizational Sciences - JIOS, while a second research paper was sent for publication to the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education - IJETHE.

Abstracts of published papers are available on the project website under the category "RESEARCH PAPERS”.

Followed a presentation on methodology for the development of the maturity framework in the hybrid environment, which was held by HELA project team member Asst. Prof. Katarina Pažur Aničić, PhD, who presented the team with activities that are in full swing and those that are still to come in the second project phase. These activities are related to achieving Objective 4: Develop LA adoption maturity framework (LAAMF) in blended educational environment.

Lastly, there was a discussion led by Prof. Diana Šimić, PhD on the topic of Research Data Management Plan. The Plan was introduced in 2022 by the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ) and it will be included in the process of monitoring the implementation of projects, which also applies to the HELA project.

At the very end of the meeting, project leader, Prof. Nina Begičević Ređep, PhD thanked all members of the project team for their active participation during the first 12 months of project implementation and encouraged them to engage in further activities on the same scale. The second project phase will last 18 months (01/03/22-31/08/23).

To learn more about the purpose, activities and results of the project, we invite you to look at the HELA project booklet.

More information on the objectives and expected results is available on the project's website.