Background

SLATE was established in 2016 through funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research (KD), in response to a Call for an interdisciplinary research centre that could contribute to international research and national competence development on the use of data and data approaches in understanding education and lifetime learning. 

Eivind Heder, Joakim Bakke and Marie Wien Fjell represented KD. Odrunn Samdal, UiB’s Prorector for Education, and Jarle Eid, the leader of SLATE’s Board, were present, in addition to representatives from SLATE.

Presenting SLATE

SLATE Director, Barbara Wasson presented the SLATE team – leadership, Professor IIs, researchers and students. She then provided an overview of status and activity as relating to the 6 points in KD’s mandate for the Centre. In particular she highlighted the exceptional number of requests for meetings and collaborations – many more that SLATE has the manpower or capacity to handle. This underlines the high interest in this area – learning analytics, assessment, big data in education, etc.

Wasson concluded with opening up for a discussion on future directions. She identified a number of challenges including

• Clarifying the relationship / role between SLATE and EdTech
• LA is a new, rapidly developing field: there is a need to define terminology, develop competency before quality research can be undertaken
• Demands for knowledge and advice vastly exceeds research results at this time
• Lack of qualified personnel in this new field – challenges in recruiting the few elite

All in all, it was a productive and informative day! Both SLATE and KD look forward to their continued collaboration.