Paradata (Learning Resource Analytics)
Encyclopedia
As a general definition, paradata are usage data about learning resources that include not just quantitative metrics (e.g., how many times a piece of content was accessed), but also pedagogic context, as inferred through the actions of educators and learners. Paradata may be operationalized as a specific type of metadata
, however the construct differs from traditional descriptive metadata that classify the properties of the learning resource itself, and instead involves the capture—and open resharing—of in situ information about online users’ actions related to the resource . Learning resource paradata is generated through user processes of searching for content, identifying interest for subsequent use, correlating resources to specific learning goals or standards, and integrating content into educational practices. Paradata may include individual or aggregate user interactions such as viewing, downloading, sharing to other users, favoriting,and embedding reusable content into derivative works, as well as contextualizing activities such as aligning content to educational standards, adding tags, and incorporating resources into curriculum. Context about users is also of interest as paradata, including grade level or subject taught, experience level, or geographic location—as is information about the curricular relevance, audience, methodologies, and instructional settings of use as a resource is adopted by practitioners. Paradata are generally anonymized and/or aggregated at the community level to protect the privacy of individual users as data are shared between learning communities. Paradata may be expressed in realtime data streaming as user actions occur, or as periodic reporting of user activities over a range of time .
Related concepts include Contextualized Attention Metadata , activity streams
, tagging
and other social metadata , and user annotations
.
within the NSDL’s STEM Exchange initiative . The construct has since been adopted by other organizations engaged in digital library and digital learning resource projects including the Learning Registry initiative spearheaded by the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education and the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative at the Department of Defense .
paradata framework versioned as NSDL comm_para1.0 , the structure of which parallels similar schemas for metadata so that it can interoperate with Dublin Core
based schemas including nsdl-dc .
In October, 2011 the Learning Registry development team released its Paradata Specification V1.0 [ that details the schemata of JSON
objects for representing learning resource paradata.
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
, however the construct differs from traditional descriptive metadata that classify the properties of the learning resource itself, and instead involves the capture—and open resharing—of in situ information about online users’ actions related to the resource . Learning resource paradata is generated through user processes of searching for content, identifying interest for subsequent use, correlating resources to specific learning goals or standards, and integrating content into educational practices. Paradata may include individual or aggregate user interactions such as viewing, downloading, sharing to other users, favoriting,and embedding reusable content into derivative works, as well as contextualizing activities such as aligning content to educational standards, adding tags, and incorporating resources into curriculum. Context about users is also of interest as paradata, including grade level or subject taught, experience level, or geographic location—as is information about the curricular relevance, audience, methodologies, and instructional settings of use as a resource is adopted by practitioners. Paradata are generally anonymized and/or aggregated at the community level to protect the privacy of individual users as data are shared between learning communities. Paradata may be expressed in realtime data streaming as user actions occur, or as periodic reporting of user activities over a range of time .
Related concepts include Contextualized Attention Metadata , activity streams
Activity stream
An activity stream is a list of recent activities performed by an individual, typically on a single website. For example, Facebook's News Feed is an activity stream. Since the introduction of the News Feed on September 6, 2006, other major websites have introduced similar implementations for their...
, tagging
Tag (metadata)
In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching...
and other social metadata , and user annotations
Web annotation
A web annotation is an online annotation associated with a web resource, typically a web page. With a Web annotation system, a user can add, modify or remove information from a Web resource without modifying the resource itself...
.
History
In 2010, the term paradata was adopted by the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) to reference data about user interactions with digital learning objectsLearning object
A learning object is "a collection of content items, practice items, and assessment items that are combined based on a single learning objective". The term is credited to Wayne Hogins when he created a working group in 1994 bearing the name though the concept was first described by Gerard in 1967...
within the NSDL’s STEM Exchange initiative . The construct has since been adopted by other organizations engaged in digital library and digital learning resource projects including the Learning Registry initiative spearheaded by the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education and the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative at the Department of Defense .
Technical Frameworks for Sharing Learning Resource Paradata
In February 2011, NSDL released an open source XMLXML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
paradata framework versioned as NSDL comm_para1.0 , the structure of which parallels similar schemas for metadata so that it can interoperate with Dublin Core
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata terms are a set of vocabulary terms which can be used to describe resources for the purposes of discovery. The terms can be used to describe a full range of web resources: video, images, web pages etc and physical resources such as books and objects like artworks...
based schemas including nsdl-dc .
In October, 2011 the Learning Registry development team released its Paradata Specification V1.0 [ that details the schemata of JSON
JSON
JSON , or JavaScript Object Notation, is a lightweight text-based open standard designed for human-readable data interchange. It is derived from the JavaScript scripting language for representing simple data structures and associative arrays, called objects...
objects for representing learning resource paradata.