With almost every part of the industry being digitised, the internet is now being overflowing with data. From social media inputs to website stats, we can find big data everywhere. But not every piece of information on the internet matters. To analyse an effective impact on business, only a few data metrics actually count. That’s why we need big data analytics to determine which data is worth collecting and analysing and which are fine to treat with ignorance.

What is Big Data?

Big data refers to the collection of large and complex data sets that are difficult to analyse using traditional data management tools. Big data is used to collect, understand, analyse, share and visualise data incoming in large volume and high velocity. Using big data analytics, people can identify business trends and predict human behaviour.

Have you ever got the feeling while surfing on the internet that just after typing a few letters, your browser correctly predicts what you are looking for or while watching YouTube videos, you are being bombarded with ads for the product you were searching for two days ago? That’s where big data analytics work. Every time you type and search anything on your browser, it collects your data and learns your behaviour pattern. And based on your behaviour, it predicts your next search.

These details come in handy when businesses need to develop more personalised products and services that people need.

Big data can also be of great advantage in improving the quality of online learning. With the help of big data, administrators can track the learning behaviour of users and correlate it with the probability of their successes or failures. We term this as learning analytics. The right learning analytics can tell which part of the course keeps learners most engaged and where they are least engaged. Such information can help the course developers to create engaging online content and make it more personalised for the specific learners.

Learner’s time log activity to track engagement (Source: Coconut Learning admin portal)

These high-volume data can be collected directly from learning management systems (LMS) or through various interactions with learners, like through their likes and comments. Nowadays, many LMSs come with in-built learning analytics where you can record and analyse learners’ behaviour and performance. This feature helps in developing the courses with enhanced user experience and effectiveness.
So what are the various ways in which businesses and educational institutes can collect big data using LMS? Let’s find out.

How does an LMS help businesses obtain big data?

LMS can help businesses collect big data, analyse them and report the capabilities of learners to make amends for their products and services accordingly. They also help employers to produce customised training courses for each employee to reinforce his/her learning experience. Some popular ways to collect big data using LMS are highlighted below.

Learners’ Progress

Coconut Learning’s student dashboard to track course progress

Have your learners successfully completed the courses? How much time did they take to finish one module? If you have answers to these questions, you can easily identify which part of your online learning content is more engaging and which part your learners are finding hard to comprehend. For instance, if your learners are taking longer to complete a part of the module, you know that this part is tough or too boring for learners and you need to change it.

An LMS with learning analytics offers insights into user experiences of your learners and their learning behaviour, which further helps you design more interactive courses.

Online Assessments

An LMS allows you to add assessments with auto-generated scoring system at the end of each learning module. Collecting and analysing big data of your learners’ scores assist you to identify their strengths and weaknesses. This will further help you add content that your learners need to improve their performances.

For instance, if a certain course gets a maximum passing percentage, it means that the course is designed in the right direction. In the other case, you will know what modifications to bring to increase learners’ interaction.

Course Completion Rates

Whether your learners are successfully completing the course they enrolled in or they are leaving it halfway? The answer to this question will let you know how interactive and engaging your course is. Using an LMS, you can find out the percentage of people who have successfully completed the course. This will give you a clear sign to reevaluate your curriculum. In case the completion rate is very low, you can integrate your LMS with some interactive tools to make your content more engaging.

Real-Time Feedback

An LMS also allows you to ask for real-time feedback from your learners. With this feature, you can get the learning perspective of each individual and know their opinions. No one can review your courses better than your learners themselves. From their feedback, you will know what kind of content they actually need and produce the same for them.

Online Surveys

Just like eLearning assessments, you can also conduct online surveys through your LMS. What courses your learners are looking for nowadays? Whether they are comfortable with reading materials or audiobooks? Do they need a specific course to perform better at their work? You can ask all such questions in your online survey and get your learners’ views and recommendations. This will help you design a valuable and relevant curriculum catering to the needs of your learners.

Leveraging big data analytics into your LMS will help you not just customise your online courses, but also allows you to record and analyse your customers’ buying behaviour. You will know what your potential buyers are looking for and provided them the same with right data analytics and implementation. This will help you retain your existing customers as well.

Final Thoughts

We are living in an era where big data plays a huge role in any type of organisation, regardless of its size. For educational institutes, big data analytics can help in designing customised learning paths for students by acknowledging their weaknesses and strengths in grasping the content. Businesses can leverage big data analytics into their training and development programmes as well as in customer service management strategies.

Coconut Learning is providing customisable LMS for educational institutes and businesses of all sizes. Our big-data-driven solution allows you to

• track your learners’ progress and performance,
• add assessments to your courses,
• customise learning paths for your employees,
• provide content in multiple formats,
• integrate different features to make learning more comprehensive and engaging,

and so on. If you need these features for your business, then request a demonstration of our LMS portal today itself.