In December 2013, Professor Shirley Alexander was delighted to host a visit by Professor Simon Buckingham Shum. Simon is Professor of Learning Informatics at the UK Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute (KMi), an 80-strong lab at the convergence of learning sciences, web media, collaboration tools and the social/semantic web.

While at UTS, Simon ran a seminar on the potential of learning analytics and the systemic quantification of learning. The seminar addressed questions such as:

• What realities do we want analytics to perpetuate, or bring into being?
• Can we talk about analytics in the same breath as the deepest values that a holistic educational experience should nurture?
• Could analytics become an ally for those who want to shift assessment regimes towards valuing the qualities that many now regard as critical to thriving in the ’age of complexity’?