Published October 15, 2024

The EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, October 21-24 in San Antonio, brings together leaders in higher education technology from around the world to share ideas and collaborate on solutions to address some of higher-ed’s biggest technology challenges.  This year, several Unizin members and staff will be at Educause, sharing strategies and addressing key issues concerning learning data and student success.

Using real-world examples of how members are gleaning valuable information from the data generated by SIS and LMS systems across their campuses, while navigating the complexities of data privacy, the sessions below help bring theory into practice. 

If you’ll be in San Antonio, be sure to mark these two Tuesday sessions and Wednesday’s poster presentation for consideration.  Or catch them on replay in November. Featured presentations include:

Now Is the Time: Successful Strategies to Maximize the Impact of Your Teaching and Learning Data

Tuesday, October 22 | 11:30AM–11:30AM CT | EDUCAUSE Commons, Enterprise Central Theater

Tom Andriola, Vice Chancellor, IT and Data, University of California, Irvine, 

Maggie Jesse, Executive Director, ITS Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology, The University of Iowa, and Bart Pursel, CEO Unizin will lead an interactive panel presentation exploring the technical, ethical and data governance challenges inherent in democratizing access to teaching and learning data. 

While high-quality data, harmonized across edtech platform is essential to enabling AI-driven initiatives, data-governance is paramount. 

Tom, Maggie and Bart will review the strategies used at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Iowa to address the technical and governance challenges that govern the availability of delineated data to key stakeholder groups from faculty and advisors to administrators and students themselves. 

Threading the Needle: Empowering Faculty-Reflective Teaching While Preserving Student Data Privacy

Tuesday, October 22 | 3:00PM–3:45PM CT | Meeting Room 006AB, River Level

Later on Tuesday, Heather Maness, Assistant Director, Learning Analytics and Assessment, University of Florida will join Bart to discuss the use of student data, such as clickstream and contextual data, to empower faculty-reflective teaching practices. Together they will delve into strategies for preserving student privacy, designing interactive dashboards for data visualizations for faculty and leveraging course data to mitigate bias and foster more equitable learning environments. 

Heather and Bart will also share how instructional technologists, faculty development professionals, and faculty from Unizin-members the University of Florida, Rutgers, and Colorado State University collaboratively designed a reflective teaching application. 

Beyond the Silo: The Consortia Approach to Navigating Emerging Challenges

Wednesday, October 23 | 9:15AM–10:00AM & 3:45PM-4:45PM CT | EDUCAUSE Commons, Teaching and Learning Central Poster Area

On Wednesday, Gary Chinn, Assistant Dean for Digital Learning, The Pennsylvania State University and Bart will present their poster exploring the transformative potential of the consortia model to accelerate progress and innovation and address the complex and emerging challenges facing the academy.

The poster provides a real-world example of how members of Unizin consortium pooled resources, shared perspectives and collaborated to problem-solve, benchmark, and explore solutions regarding the technology, policy, and shared governance aspects of digital badging and alternative credential strategies.