The indicators project identifying effective learning : adoption, activity, grades and external factors

Learning management systems have become almost ubiquitous as a technical solution to e-learning within universities. Extant literature illustrates that LMS system logs, along with other IT systems data, can be used to inform decision-making. It also suggests that very few institutions are using this data to inform their decisions. The indicators project aims to build on and extend previous work in this area to provide services that can inform the decision making of teaching staff, management, support staff and students. Through an initial set of three questions the paper offers support for some existing critical success factors, identifies potential limitations of others, generates some new insights from a longitudinal comparison of feature adoption of two different LMS within the one institution, and identifies a number of insights and ideas for future work.