Unizin is building platform and applications to enable an interoperable ecosystem for teaching and learning data
AUSTIN, April 24, 2018 – Unizin, a consortium of leading universities working together to improve teaching and learning with technology, has announced that its Unizin Data Platform (UDP) will be built atop the Google Cloud Platform as part of a new alliance with Google Cloud.
The Unizin Data Platform is the consortium’s foundation for an interoperable, standards-driven ecosystem for teaching and learning data, providing a place to securely store student data and serve a set of integration and analytic services. Member Universities will aggregate, access, explore, and analyze their data to address strategic educational initiatives, such as improving personalized learning. The Unizin Data Platform will integrate and commonly-model data from a variety of systems, including demographic, historical, curricular, performance, and behavioral data.
The Unizin Data Platform’s operations and use are consistent with Unizin and institutional privacy and data security policies.
By leveraging a holistic data picture of learners in their academic contexts, universities will be able to direct their initiatives to improve learner outcomes. Stronger analytics on student performance, for example, may be used to inform course design or advising practices. Universities may also choose to contribute data to consortium-level research datasets. Anonymized, consortium-level datasets enable new directions in academic research in teaching and learning. As a whole, the consortium will operate the largest, richest, and broadest collection of learner data in higher education.
“The University of Michigan is pleased to be the lead institution in working with Unizin to build a unified learning analytics platform,” says Sean DeMonner, Information Systems Executive Director of Teaching and Learning at the University of Michigan. “The Unizin Data Platform will improve student success through enhanced data-informed teaching and advancements in learning sciences research.”
“Building the Unizin Data Platform on the Google Cloud Platform provides our Members with scalable infrastructure, powerful data analytics and the ability to leverage machine learning solutions to advance Unizin’s work to improve learning research and outcomes in a secure environment.” says Rob Lowden, Unizin Executive Director. “Google for Education is enabling Unizin to advance the higher education digital learning ecosystem.”
Google Cloud Platform provides solutions for building secure and reliable data-driven applications that transform organizations and user experiences. Unizin will also leverage Google Cloud Platform to deliver new analytics applications to its universities faster and more cost-effectively than ever before.
“Google Cloud Platform is providing Unizin with foundational services for managing and analyzing data at scale to improve student success,” said Bram Bout, Director of Sales, Google for Education. “We look forward to seeing the advancements that access to Google Cloud Platform will support for the academic community.”
Research, curated learner analytics, data interoperability and standards are core to the mission of developing a unified ecosystem that empowers Unizin Members to utilize data for improving education.
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About Unizin
Unizin, Ltd. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit consortium of 25 leading universities dedicated to promoting affordability, access, and learner success in digital education. Unizin’s interoperable technology ecosystem supports the diverse teaching and learning environments across its member institutions. Unizin solutions promote technology standards, enable integrations, eliminate the learner analytics black box, ensure accessibility of content and data, preserve and promote faculty choice, and support institutional collaboration. Unizin is operated by its member institutions through a Board of Directors. Unizin is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Visit us at www.unizin.org or find us on Facebook or Twitter.
Media Contact:
Nancy Pearsall
Unizin
(512) 640-6100
nancy.pearsall@unizin.org