Abstract:

This paper presents a research on the effectiveness of digital learning in Higher Education and how this can be measured. This research aims to bridge the gap between scientific and practice-oriented research about digital learning. The focus will be on learning analytics with the goal to identify the potential of digital education for Universities.
To achieve this goal, we conducted a literature review of which have resulted in the following research questions:
• What are the higher education contexts in which digital learning can take place?
• What are the primary metrics which allows measuring the efficiency of digital learning in higher education contexts?
The research on learning analytics was linked with concepts related to digital learning: mobile learning, social web learning, and online platforms.
The methodological approach of the research was qualitative and the main technique to collect and analyze data was content analysis from the literature review of papers on digital learning contexts and digital learning analytics. For this paper, bibliometric research was performed using b-on, which is a research resource that allows access to scientific texts included in Elsevier, WOS, Sage, and Springer databases, among others.
The primary technique used was content analysis on the Title of the papers, the keywords, and the abstracts to identify the relevant papers for this research.
To verify the effectiveness of digital learning, it is essential to analyze the various ways in which it can take place because digital learning includes a wide range of practices and may take place anywhere and at any time and multiple factors such as intention, consciousness, and expectations determine the outcomes of the learning process.
Those outcomes need to be analyzed using analytical tools which can do the collection, analysis, use, and dissemination of data in the form of reports and descriptions, with the aim to provide cognitive data that are the central academic management support to Universities about their digital learning processes.
The results of the present study show that digital learning analytics can enhance the efficacy of the impact of the learning process in organizations and that contexts for learning supported on mobile technologies, tablet and smartphone applications become more and more popular among the students.
As the leading contexts in digital learning our finding point out for an increasing mix of those in determining with the goal to prepare students to think critically and solve complex problems, work collaboratively, communicate efficiently and have more autonomy independence in the learning process.
Digital learning uses technology to strengthen the learning experience with a mix of tools and practices, including, among others, online and formative assessment; an increase in the focus and quality of teaching resources and time; online content and courses; and applications of technology in the course curricula.
For further research, it is essential to analyze the impacts and the role of learning analytics on efficacy increment on the learning process.

Keywords:

Digital learning, higher education, learning analytics, effectiveness, learning processes.