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Online Learning
Analytics
 Data Analytics Applications
Series Editor
Jay Liebowitz
PUBLISHED
Big Data and Analytics Applications in Government
Current Practices and Future Opportunities
by Gregory Richards
ISBN: 978-1-4987-6434-6
Big Data in the Arts and Humanities
Theory and Practice
by Giovanni Schiuma and Daniela Carlucci
ISBN 978-1-4987-6585-5
Data Analytics Applications in Education
by Jan Vanthienen and Kristoff De Witte
ISBN: 978-1-4987-6927-3
Data Analytics Applications in Latin America and Emerging Economies
by Eduardo Rodriguez
ISBN: 978-1-4987-6276-2
Data Analytics for Smart Cities
by Amir Alavi and William G. Buttlar
ISBN 978-1-138-30877-0
Data-Driven Law
Data Analytics and the New Legal Services
by Edward J. Walters
ISBN 978-1-4987-6665-4
Intuition, Trust, and Analytics
by Jay Liebowitz, Joanna Paliszkiewicz, and Jerzy Gołuchowski
ISBN: 978-1-138-71912-5
Research Analytics
Boosting University Productivity and Competitiveness through Scientometrics
by Francisco J. Cantú-Ortiz
ISBN: 978-1-4987-6126-0
Sport Business Analytics
Using Data to Increase Revenue and Improve Operational Efficiency
by C. Keith Harrison and Scott Bukstein
ISBN: 978-1-4987-8542-6
Data Analytics and AI
by Jay Liebowitz
ISBN: 978-0-3678-9561-7
Online Learning
Analytics

Edited by
Jay Liebowitz
First Edition published 2022
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Dedication

To all those students, educators, and

practitioners entering the “new normal.”

vii
Contents

Dedication vii

Contents ix

List of Figures xv

List of Tables xvii

Foreword xix
Pete Smith

Preface xxv

Contributing Authors xxvii

About the Editor xxxvii

Chapter 1 1
Leveraging Learning Analytics for Assessment and Feedback
Dirk Ifenthaler and Samuel Greiff
Abstract 1
Introduction 2
Current State of Educational Assessment 3
Harnessing Data and Analytics for Assessment 5
Benefits of Analytics-Enhanced Assessment 8
Analytics-Enhanced Assessment Framework 9
Conclusion 11
References 12

ix
x Online Learning Analytics

Chapter 2 19
Desperately Seeking the Impact of Learning Analytics
in Education at Scale
Marrying Data Analysis with Teaching and Learning
Olga Viberg and Åke Grönlund
Abstract 19
Introduction 20
Critical Aspects of LA in a Human-Centered Perspective 21
Focus on Teachers’ Needs and Goals 22
Teachers’ Data Literacy Skills 24
Data 25
Conclusions 27
References 28

Chapter 3 33
Designing for Insights
An Evidenced-Centered Approach to Learning Analytics
Kara N. McWilliams, Kristen Herrick, K. Becca Runyon, and
Andreas Oranje
Abstract 33
Introduction 34
Current Issues in Learning Analytics 35
Learning Theory and Learning Analytics 35
Availability and Validity of Learner Data 36
Contextual Gaps in Data Footprints 37
Ethical Considerations 37
Conclusion 38
An Evidenced-Centered Design Approach to Yielding Valid
and Reliable Learning Analytics 38
ELAborate 40
User-Centered Design in Discovery 40
Learning Outcomes, Theory of Action, Theory of Change,
and a Learning Model 41
Learner Data Footprint 43
Construct Validity and Meaningful Insights 47
Ethics-Informed Learning Analytics 50
Conclusion 51
References 52
 Contents xi

Chapter 4 57
Implementing Learning Analytics at Scale in an Online World
Lessons Learned from the Open University UK
Bart Rienties
Abstract 57
Introduction 58
Making Use of Learning Analytics Data 59
The Rise of the Learning Analytics Community 60
Case Study 1: The Analytics4Action Project 61
Case Study 2: Learning Design to Understand Learning Analytics 65
Discussion 71
References 73

Chapter 5 79
Realising the Potential of Learning Analytics
Reflections from a Pandemic
Mohammad Khalil, Paul Prinsloo, and Sharon Slade
Abstract 79
Introduction 80
Some Notes on the Nature of Conceptual Exploration 81
Glimpses of Learning Analytics During the Pandemic 82
Implications and (Un)Realised Potential of Learning Analytics 84
Conceptual Operations 85
Conclusions 90
References 91

Chapter 6 95
Using Learning Analytics and Instructional Design to Inform,
Find, and Scale Quality Online Learning
John Fritz, Mariann Hawken, and Sarah Shin
Abstract 95
Introduction 96
Selected Research and Practice About Online Learning Quality 97
Learning Analytics in Higher Ed and at UMBC 99
UMBC’s Pandemic PIVOT 101
Theory and Practice 102
Adoption 103
Impact 103
xii Online Learning Analytics

Faculty 104
Students 105
Lessons Learned 107
Conclusion 110
References 111

Chapter 7 115
Democratizing Data at a Large R1 Institution
Supporting Data-Informed Decision Making for Advisers,
Faculty, and Instructional Designers
Chris Millet, Jessica Resig, and Bart Pursel
Abstract 115
Introduction 116
Dimensions of Learning Analytics 116
Learning Analytics Project Dimensions 117
Organizational Considerations: Creating Conditions for Success 119
Security, Privacy, and Ethics 120
Advancing Analytics Initiatives at Your Institution 125
Iterating Toward Success 125
Consortium, Research Partnerships, and Standards 126
Penn State Projects 127
Penn State Projects: Analytical Design Model 128
Penn State Projects: Elevate 129
Penn State Projects: Spectrum 136
Conclusion 141
References 142

Chapter 8 145
The Benefits of the ‘New Normal’
Data Insights for Improving Curriculum Design, Teaching
Practice, and Learning
Deborah West and Pablo Munguia
Abstract 145
Introduction 146
Testing the Benefits of the New Normal 150
Variables and Proxies 153
Digging Deeper: How to Separate Curriculum, Assessment, and
Teacher Effects on Learning 155
Conclusion 157
References 157
 Contents xiii

Chapter 9 165
Learning Information, Knowledge, and Data Analysis in Israel
A Case Study
Moria Levy and Ronit Nehemia
Abstract 165
Introduction: The 21st-Century Skills 166
Developing the Digital Information Discovery and Detection Programs 167
Upgrading the Program: Data and Information 168
COVID-19 173
Current Situation 174
Summary 174
References 174

Chapter 10 177
Scaling Up Learning Analytics in an Evidence-Informed Way
Justian Knobbout and Esther van der Stappen
Abstract 177
Introduction 178
A Capability Model for Learning Analytics 179
Capabilities for Learning Analytics 179
Design Process 184
Using the Learning Analytics Capability Model in Practice 185
Evaluation of the Learning Analytics Capability Model 186
Phases of Learning Analytics Implementation 186
Measuring Impact on Learning 190
Conclusion and Recommendations 193
References 194

Chapter 11 197
The Role of Trust in Online Learning
Joanna Paliszkiewicz and Edyta Skarzyńska
Abstract 197
Introduction 198
Trust and Online Learning—Literature Review 198
Research Method 201
Characteristics of the Research Sample 201
The Instrument and Data Analysis 201
Research Results 201
Demographic Characteristics of Respondents 201
Technological Availability and Software Used 202
xiv Online Learning Analytics

Benefits of Learning Online 202

Bottlenecks in Online Learning 203
Factors Affecting Online Learning 204
Discussion 208
Conclusion 209
References 210

Chapter 12 213
Face Detection with Applications in Education
Juan Carlos Bonilla-Robles, José Alberto Hernández Aguilar, and
Guillermo Santamaría-Bonfil
Abstract 213
Introduction 214
Problem Statement 215
Literature Review 215
Face Detection Techniques 216
Geometric Approach 216
Machine Learning Approach 217
Methodology 217
Image 218
Preprocessing 219
Integral Image 220
Removing Haar Features 221
Experimentation 221
Creating the Haar Cascading Classifier 221
Tuning Parameters 223
Experimentation Results 223
Results Metrics 225
Results Comparison Table 225
Conclusions and Future Work 226
Acknowledgments 226
References 227

Index 229
List of Figures
Figure 1.1 Iterative Implementation Cycle of Educational Assessment 6
Figure 1.2 Analytics-Enhanced Assessment Framework 10
Figure 4.1 Analytics4Action Framework 61
Figure 4.2 OU Analyse Module Overview 63
Figure 4.3 Individual Predictive Learning Analytics in OU Analyse 64
Figure 4.4 Predictive Learning Analytics Overview of Stacey 66
Figure 4.5 Learning Design Mapping of Introduction to
Engineering Course 69
Figure 5.1 Distributed Learning in a Time of Pandemics 85
Figure 5.2 Lessons from a Pandemic: Six Conceptual Operations for
Realising the Potential of Learning Analytics 86
Figure 6.1 UMBC “Lessons Learned” Faculty Survey (Spring 2021) 104
Figure 6.2 Fall 2020 UMBC Student Mid-term Survey About
PIVOT Courses 106
Figure 7.1 Dashboard of Lesson Learning Objectives, Activities, and
Instructional Materials Alongside Student Performance Data 130
Figure 7.2 Dashboard of Student Interaction Data, Including Page Views,
Printing Frequency, Media Consumption, and Engagement
with Selected Course Elements 131
Figure 7.3 The Rolling Seven-Day Average Graph 133
Figure 7.4 A Visualization of Topics Across Several Class Sessions
of a Course 138
Figure 7.5 A Visualization of Questions Being Asked Across Several
Class Sessions of a Course 139
Figure 7.6 A Visualization Showing the Number of Unique Speakers
Across Class Sessions 140

xv
xvi Online Learning Analytics

Figure 8.1 Heuristic Model Emerging from the Community of Inquiry

Framework 151
Figure 8.2 The New Normal Theoretical Framework for Online-Only
Learning and Teaching 156
Figure 9.1 The Data Analysis Model 169
Figure 10.1 Learning Analytics Capability Model 180
Figure 10.2 LACM Tool Dashboard 187
Figure 10.3 Capabilities Required per Implementation Phase 189
Figure 10.4 Operational Definitions of Learning 191
Figure 12.1 Methodology for the Geometric Focus Detection of Faces 216
Figure 12.2 Methodology for Face Detection Approach Machine Learning 217
Figure 12.3 Face Detection Methodology 217
Figure 12.4 Integral Image Calculation 221
Figure 12.5 Comparison OpenCV with MyHaar 224
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Benefits Matrix of Analytics-Enhanced Assessments 8
Table 3.1 Roles and Responsibilities of a Cross-Functional Agile
Research and Development Team 39
Table 3.2 High-Level Example of the Learning Model for the Annotation
Capability Included in ELAborate 44
Table 4.1 OULDI Learning Design 67
Table 7.1 Project Purpose and Related Considerations 118
Table 7.2 Project Audience and Related Considerations 118
Table 7.3 Data Sources and Related Considerations 119
Table 7.4 Risk Factors and Related Considerations 120
Table 7.5 Project Dimensions: Analytical Design Model 128
Table 7.6 Project Dimensions: Elevate 129
Table 7.7 Project Dimensions: Spectrum 136
Table 8.1 Evidence Levels, Questions, and Evaluating Approaches
Needed to Test the Pedagogical Framework in the
New Normal 152
Table 9.1 Program Syllabus 170
Table 9.2 Final Projects 172
Table 11.1 Demographic Data 202
Table 11.2 Benefits of Learning Online 203
Table 11.3 Bottlenecks in Online Learning 204
Table 11.4 Factors Affecting Online Learning 205
Table 11.5 The Ways of Verification of Participation and Knowledge Level 207
Table 12.1 Comparison of OpenCV and MyHaar Classifiers 225

xvii
Foreword
Pete Smith
University of Texas at Arlington

In 2017, I asked in a book chapter title: Has learning analytics had its Moneyball
moment? The world of education was and is awash with data about and from our
learners. And researchers in the emerging field of learning analytics were begin­
ning to make significant breakthroughs in our understanding of the classroom,
the learning process, and curricula writ large. As educators and scholars we were
poised, as were the Oakland As in the well-known book and film, to transform
and deepen understanding of “our sport.”
Add to that momentum the “Great Onlining” of 2020, when so many of our
institutions of higher education in particular moved quickly to online teaching
and learning in the face of a pandemic. This rapidly increased our available data
related to instruction and learning. If anything, institutions were faced with not
only “big data,” but also “even bigger data” to use for both learning as well as
institutional analytics.
But what has been clearly emerging in the past several years, in both the
research and practitioner literatures, is a palpable sense of professional unease
in the learning analytics area. Beyond research, educational practitioners at all
levels focused on the data and analytics of our profession, with a nagging voice
asking us all for ROI, often in a business sense, proof of the impact of our work.
Can we clearly and cleanly link improved student retention or graduation rates
to interventions based on our ever-accumulating data? And did the costs in
tools, technology, and talent justify further focus and investment of human and
financial resources?
There were and are, in fact, early ROI successes in learning analytics. Institu­
tions in the U.S. and around the world are applying systems to monitor and model
student performance and success, providing a window into student engagement
that we honestly have lacked at the institutional level. The educational data

xix
xx Online Learning Analytics

market has seen the emergence of a range of these applied tools specifically
designed for supporting students and measuring impact in our big data world.
Academic administrators at my institution make use of data and modeled out­
comes from our Civitas machine learning models to better understand the learn­
ers in their colleges and departments. AI models today reveal clear indicators of
student success and engagement, as well as potential pathways for intervention
when a learner struggles. Faculty and staff across my campus use these modeled
data to better communicate with and support learners at my institution. It is
having a demonstrable impact. This is the “real world” of learning analytics—
learning analytics “on the ground.”
However, beyond the pristine cases of student progression and graduation
rates, ROI remains a challenging concept in the teaching and learning space.
Truth be told, there are very few clean business cases for analytics investment
even in the worlds of business and industry. In the higher ed setting, our growth
in analytics-trained personnel takes place alongside the general development of
a campus culture of data usage, training of faculty and staff in learning analyt­
ics, and personnel growth in areas such as advising, coaching, and scaffolding
students on their educational journeys. Can I as an administrator pinpoint the
clear and identified fiscal impact of one particular new data analytics tool, or
a single new staff position specialized in learning data and their analysis? Too
often the answer to that question is “yes . . . but,” and that does leave that same
sense of unease.
Without using a sports metaphor, Neil Selwyn (2019) asked a similar question,
perhaps slightly more bluntly: “What’s the problem with learning analytics?”
That author raised concerns about the “profit-driven machinations” of the “data
economy,” and cited in particular a “blind faith in data,” techno-solutionism
and the issues of fairness and equity in the socio-economic and political contexts
of learners.” To restate Selwyn’s concerns: Are we putting blind faith in the data
and the emerging technologies we have at our disposal as educators? And are the
algorithms that drive student retention modeling also algorithms of economic
and societal misrepresentation?
The challenges of data-solutionism in our field are concrete. In my role as an
analytics leader, I often open presentations to faculty colleagues with the ques­
tion: Where is the data in your teaching? That query frequently leads to spirited
discussion, and I do more often than not come away from such encounters with
a stronger sense of the very human nature of teaching and learning. Indeed,
Selwyn (2019) notes the larger tension between “ ‘dataphiles’ who consider that
everything is quantifiable, calculable, and potentially party to statistical con­
trol” and “ ‘data sceptics’ who feel that education is an area where this logic is
 Foreword xxi

not appropriate”—the larger concept that education simply cannot be viewed

through what Beer (2018) has called the “data gaze.”
And there is no shortage of techno-solutionism in the rapid rise of artifi­
cial intelligence. Wajcman (2019) cautions against the belief, perhaps idealistic,
that individuals and social systems are essentially programmable machines, and
argues that a technology-centered approach clearly underestimates the complex­
ity of our educational settings. To this, the technological idealists will point
out that in fact our AI models today are ever-increasing in complexity and the
subtlety of the insight they provide. And today we are demanding of the algo­
rithms not only increased efficiency but also results that can not only be acted
upon but also better understood. Large scale responses to machine intelligence
such as the European Union’s AI regulation plan will bring these debates center-
stage for several years to come.
Indeed, as analytics professionals, educational researchers, and applied data
scientists, we all are faced daily with questions of fairness and equity: do the data
we collect equitably portray the broadest range and depth of our diverse learn­
ers, and offer avenues for student success that are sensitive to our multicultural
and multidimensional student body? Obviously, there is work to be done in our
now-global context for teaching and learning.
Despite these critical concerns and a palpable sense of disillusion or transi­
tion in the larger field, it is important to note that learning analytics remain, for
many of us, the most visible and oftentimes the only large-scale implementation
of big data and machine learning to have a “real world” impact on teaching and
learning on our campuses today. In many ways, learning analytics remains a key
player on the educational field, “the show” to continue the baseball metaphor,
where on a daily basis AI models of our learners are built and used to guide stu­
dent learning and success. Our students in “Generation AI” increasingly expect
intelligent tools and services to support and guide them.
No other instance of machine learning on my campus impacts students and
their success daily. Critics may argue that this data and modeling work is reduc­
tivist, or theoretically less “user respectful” than it could be—fair points, and
obvious topics for future research and scholarship. Yet across the educational
research literature, writers implicitly posit through their research methods, in
almost every issue of every scholarly journal, that machine learning can help
us to better understand our learners and their learning processes, in all of their
complex social contexts.
Today, we can and do use AI to teach, coach, and scaffold students in ways
that are more complex and more user-respectful than just a few years ago.. Each
semester now, at hundreds of higher education institutions such as my own,
hundreds of thousands of college and university students benefit from increased
xxii Online Learning Analytics

scaffolding and focused communication with faculty and staff based on reten­
tion and engagement models. “Mega-models” which munge the modeling and
outcome data from multiple institutions are providing deeper and more nuanced
understandings of our higher education game plan. We do, daily and year-round,
impact the broadest range of learners, their study, and their success, in higher
education as well as in secondary settings.
However, it remains true that the field faces very real philosophical and oper­
ational challenges, perhaps symbolized by that nagging, amorphous feeling of
unease. Yet I would argue that it is specifically at this point that new research
themes and emerging scholarly voices will energize us. The present time is the
juncture for us to expand our thinking, to “complexify” our frameworks, our
audiences, and our toolsets to address expanding understandings of teaching
and learning and the broadest set of learners in the socio-cultural and political
settings in our multicultural and global age.
The authors in this volume do just that, addressing areas of concern such as
those outlined by Selwyn, but also serving as voices to energize the field of learn­
ing analytics again. Their range of topics is both broad and one which recognizes
the humanness and depth of the educational act. Their work includes learning
analytics applications, trends, and future research, ethics and privacy in learning
analytics, social impacts, settings from both K-12 and higher education. They
write about technologies such as gamification and augmented reality, and the
fair and just application of AI and machine learning, in addition to considering
the future of online learning itself.
The writers here, I can say, do not fall prey to the threats of data- or techno­
solutionism. Their ideas and case studies are “socially sympathetic” learning ana­
lytic designs, which respect the needs and rights of learners. These applications of
learning analytics clearly engage the emerging topic of algorithmic bias, as well as
broader frameworks of fairness, equity, and social justice in data science generally.
The work in this volume asks us all to confront our field’s philosophical unease,
and then leads us further to reflect on and engage with the power of learning
analytics and modeled data in new, complex, and nuanced ways. Through these
insights and real-world applications, learning analytics will continue to live up
to its potential on the field: to deepen and make more complex our understand­
ing of the very human act of teaching and learning every day. With this collec­
tion, we further the vital academic thread of learning analytics and deepen our
insight into and appreciation of the educational process for the years ahead on
a global scale.
 Foreword xxiii

References
Beer, D. (2018). The Data Gaze: Capitalism, Power and Perception. Sage.
Selwyn, N. (2019). What’s the problem with learning analytics? Journal of Learn­
ing Analytics, 6(3), 11–19.
Wajcman, J. (2019). The digital architecture of time management. Science, Tech­
nology, & Human Values, 44(2), 315–337.
Preface
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and after effects, we have begun to enter the
“new normal” of education. Instead of online learning being an “added feature”
of K–12 schools and universities worldwide, it will be incorporated as an essen­
tial feature in one’s education.
There are many questions and concerns from parents, students, teachers, pro­
fessors, administrators, staff, accrediting bodies, and others regarding the quality
of virtual learning and its impact on student learning outcomes. These are rea­
sonable reservations to consider, but I feel the answer lies in the field of “learning
analytics,” particularly in the online environments of today and tomorrow.
We have witnessed innovations over the recent years in adding more “intel­
ligence” to the virtual learning experience, and certainly more will be coming in
the near future. In today’s data-driven environment, we must develop the right
assessments and metrics through learning analytics in order to ensure that the
effectiveness and efficacy of the student learning process are optimized.
This book is conceived on trying to answer the questions of those who may
be skeptical about online learning. Through better understanding and applying
learning analytics, we can assess how successful learning and student/faculty
engagement, as examples, can contribute towards producing the educational
outcomes needed to advance student learning for future generations.
Much research is still needed in many areas of learning analytics. For example,
the ethical aspects of learning analytics systems and cultural diversity of studies
on ethics in technology-enhanced learning require additional work (Pargman
& McGrath, 2021). A Spring 2020 New York University/LEARN study of 298
university students from 50 different schools across the United States found that
online learning during the COVID-19 times could be improved by more active
student/faculty engagement, having more compassion and better organization
of the material. A McKinsey teacher survey in March 2021 found that there is a
significant learning loss in remote learning around the world (Chen et al., 2021).

xxv
xxvi Online Learning Analytics

However, as explained through the chapters in this book, learning analytics

has proven to be successful in many areas, such as the impact of using learning
analytics in asynchronous online discussions in higher education (Martinez et
al., 2020). In addition, according to the 2020 L&D Global Sentiment Survey,
with about 2,300 respondents from 86 countries, the majority said that learning
analytics will take the center stage in global learning and development trends
going forward (Robinson, 2021).
I also feel that learning analytics are paramount and will become even more
important in our post-COVID era. To substantiate this claim, I am so thankful
for having such a distinguished group of contributing authors worldwide (from
10 countries) to add their keen insights on online learning analytics. I am also
greatly appreciative to Peter Smith for including his knowledgeable perspectives
in the Foreword on learning analytics for online environments in the future.
This book would never have been possible without John Wyzalek’s continu­
ing support, along with his Taylor & Francis colleagues, Theron Shreve and
Susan Culligan of DerryField Publishing Services. Certainly, my students and
colleagues over the past 40 years have pushed me to “get ahead of the game” (as
my 99-year-old mother-in-law’s father would always tell her). And finally, my
family gets the greatest accolades for having to put up with me for all these years.
Enjoy the book!
Jay Liebowitz, DSc
Washington, DC

References
Chen, L. K., Dorn, E., Sarakatsannis, J., and Wiesinger, A. (2021). Teacher Survey:
Learning Loss is Global—and Significant. McKinsey & Co.
Martinez, J. P. C., Catasus, M. G., and Fontanillas, T. R. (2020). Impact of
using learning analytics in asynchronous online discussions in higher edu­
cation. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education,
17.
Pargman, T. C., and McGrath, C. (2021). Mapping the ethics of learning analyt­
ics in higher education: A systematic literature review of empirical research.
Journal of Learning Analytics. https://doi.rg/10.18608/jla.2021.1
Robinson, S. (2021, March 1). Learning Analytics Trends Driving Education
in 2021, https://donaldhtaylor.co.uk/insight/the-ld-global-sentiment-survey
-2020-first-thoughts/
Contributing Authors
José Alberto Hernández Aguilar has a PhD in Engineering and Applied Sciences
from the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos (UAEMor). In 2018 he
made a postdoctoral sabbatical at the National Institute of Electricity and Clean
Energies. Since 2010 he has been a full-time research professor at the Faculty
of Accounting, Administration and Informatics (FCAeI) of the UAEMor. His
scientific interests include data science, big data analytics, and computer security.

Juan Carlos Bonilla-Robles has a degree in Computer Science, originally from

the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos (UAEMor). He has worked
in the private sector as a software developer and analyst. He is currently a stu­
dent of the master’s degree in Optimization and Applied Computing at the
UAEMor. His main lines of research and interest include digital image process­
ing, machine learning techniques, and data science.

John Fritz is Associate Vice President for Instructional Technology in the

UMBC Division of Information Technology. He is responsible for UMBC’s
focused efforts in teaching, learning, and technology and has been an active
thought leader in the emerging field of learning analytics. Prior to his profes­
sional IT career, John served as a public information officer, editor, writer, and
webmaster for 10 years at three University System of Maryland (USM) schools.
John is a frequent presenter and author for numerous higher ed IT events and
publications and has served on the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) advi­
sory board.

Samuel Greiff is head of research group, principal investigator, and Full Profes­
sor of Educational Assessment and Psychology at University of Luxembourg. He
joined the institution in 2012. He holds a PhD in cognitive and experimental
psychology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. His research focuses
on educational psychology, psychological assessment, personality psychology,

xxvii
xxviii Online Learning Analytics

cognitive psychology, and psychological methodology. He has been awarded

several national and international research funds by diverse funding organiza­
tions such as the German Ministry of Education and Research and the European
Union, was fellow in the Luxembourg research programme of excellency, and
has published articles in national and international scientific journals and books
(>150 contributions in peer-reviewed journals, many of them leading in their
field). Samuel has been working for several years on the assessment of transversal
skills such as problem solving and collaboration and their role in the classroom,
at work, and in private life. He also takes a strong interest in the use of log file
data and learning analytics for summative and formative assessment purposes.
He and his team are dedicated to increasing the understanding, measurement,
and application of cognitive and non-cognitive skills that shape our lives.

Åke Grönlund is Professor in Informatics, Örebro University School of Busi­

ness, Department of Informatics, Örebro, Sweden. Åke’s research concerns the
use of digital technologies in various human activities. The common denomina­
tor involved in all projects is to understand how people arrange their work, their
organizations, and other activities pertaining to private life, such as socializing
on the web, and how technology can be used to make improvements. In particu­
lar, focus is on the fields of education and e-government.

Mariann Hawken is the Acting Director of Instructional Technology at UMBC

and has more than 21 years of experience in educational technology. As a mem­
ber of the Blackboard Community Leadership Circle, Hawken coordinates pro­
fessional development for faculty who are preparing to teach online; supports
online and hybrid course development; and spearheads the campus transition
to Ultra. She maintains several Blackboard applications on campus, including
Learn and Collaborate. Mariann is a certified Peer Reviewer and Facilitator for
the Applying the Quality Matters Rubric.

Kristen Herrick serves as a Learning Scientist within Educational Testing Ser­

vice’s Personalized Learning and Assessment Laboratory. In this role, she facili­
tates the application of learning design principles, learning models, and learning
sciences insights to the development of digital learning capabilities and solutions.
Since 2012, Kristen has worked in various assessment, learning improvement,
and learning science-based roles in higher education and industry settings. Her
previous research focused on incorporation of implementation fidelity into stu­
dent learning outcomes assessment practices, assessing and improving students’
ethical reasoning skills, and connecting assessment practices with teaching
and pedagogy to demonstrably improve student learning. Her current research
 Contributing Authors xxix

interests include self-regulated learning and strengths-based pedagogies. Kristen

holds a master’s degree in Psychology and a PhD in Assessment and Measure­
ment from James Madison University.

Dirk Ifenthaler is the Chair and Professor for Learning, Design and Technol­
ogy at University of Mannheim, Germany and UNESCO Deputy Chair of
Data Science in Higher Education Learning and Teaching at Curtin Univer­
sity in Australia. Dirk Ifenthaler’s research focuses on the intersection of cogni­
tive psychology, educational technology, learning science, data analytics, and
computer science. His research outcomes include numerous co-authored books,
book series, book chapters, journal articles, and international conference papers,
as well as successful grant funding in Australia, Germany, and USA. He is the
Editor-in-Chief of the Springer journal Technology, Knowledge and Learning.

Mohammad Khalil is a senior researcher in learning analytics at the Centre for

the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE) at the faculty of psychology,
University of Bergen, Norway. Mohammad has a master’s degree in Information
Security and Digital Criminology and a PhD from Graz University of Technol­
ogy in Learning Analytics in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). He
has published over 50 articles on learning analytics in high-standard and well-
recognized journals and academic conferences, focusing on understanding and
improving student behavior and engagement in digital learning platforms using
data sciences. His current research focuses on learning analytics in Open and
Distance Learning (ODL), self-regulated learning, mobile, visualizations, and
gamification, as well as inclusiveness, privacy, and ethics.

Justian Knobbout obtained the MSc degree in Supply Chain Management

from the Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2013. He will obtain the PhD degree
in Learning Analytics at the Open University, the Netherlands in 2021. Justian’s
research interests include learning analytics and educational data mining. Next
to researcher, he is lecturer at the Institution of Design & Engineering at HU
University of Applied Sciences Utrecht.

Moria Levy, PhD, serves as CEO and owner of ROM Knowledgeware, a lead­
ing KM solutions firm in Israel (40 employees). She has 35 years of experience,
among them over 20 years in Knowledge Management. She is chairman of the
global expert committee of ISO (TC260/WG6) and led the team of worldwide
experts in writing the global Knowledge Management ISO standard (30401).
Moria initiated Knowledge Management studies, taught in high schools in
Israel, as part of an official program of the Ministry of Education of Israel, for
xxx Online Learning Analytics

digital knowledge and information. This is the first program of its kind in the
world. She has published several books on the discipline of KM. She is the
author of the books A Holistic Approach to Lessons Learned: How Organizations
Can Benefit from Their Own Knowledge (CRC Press) and 21st Century Manage­
ment; she is also the editor of the books Knowledge Development and innovation:
KM articles: 2019, Knowledge Sharing: KM articles 2017, Knowledge Management
in Israel: KM articles 2015, and Knowledge Management in Israel: KM articles
2012. Moria serves as the deputy chair of KMGN (KM Global Network) and
leads the KMGN Taskforce: Bringing the KM future. She is the known to be
the most active researcher of KM in Israel. Her research “WEB2.0 Implications
on Knowledge Management” has been cited over 600 times and was recognized
as a KM “classic research” and indexed Thomson Reuters “Journal Impact Fac­
tor” as to her achievements. Moria is the chairman of the Israeli Knowledge
Management Forum, which unites all KM parties in Israel.

Kara McWilliams is Associate Vice President of the ETS AI Research Labo­

ratories, responsible for the development of innovative AI-powered capabilities
across three laboratories—The Natural Language Processing Lab, the Personal­
ized Learning and Assessment Lab, and the Language Learning, Teaching, and
Assessment Lab. Her vision in the labs is the development of solutions that are
research based, user obsessed, and technology enabled. Most of Kara’s work
has focused on how to understand user needs from the perspective of their val­
ues, beliefs, and experiences and merge the research on how people learn most
effectively with the application of innovative technology. She has conducted
extensive work on the efficacy of educational technology, ethical use of AI, and
communicating both to users in meaningful ways. Kara holds a master’s degree
in Curriculum & Instruction and a PhD in Educational Research, Measure­
ment and Evaluation from Boston College.

Chris Millet has 20 years of experience in the fields of educational technology

and online learning. He is currently the Director of Penn State World Campus
Learning Design. In this role, he oversees the design and development of online
courses for a portfolio of over 45 academic programs and 500 courses. He pro­
vides leadership at the university on policies and organizational processes related
to online learning and educational technology. He also teaches at Penn State’s
College of Education. Chris co-lead the creation of the IMS Caliper learning
analytics standard. His current work focuses on online learner retention, learn­
ing analytics, virtual reality and immersive learning, and organizational effec­
tiveness. He holds a master’s degree in instructional systems from Penn State and
is currently pursuing a PhD in Learning, Design, and Technology at Penn State.
 Contributing Authors xxxi

Pablo Munguia is the Associate Director, Student Learning Support Service

at Flinders University. His research areas have been ecology and evolution of
marine organisms, and learning analytics. Within the learning analytics field,
Pablo has focused on student behaviour, metric design, scaling solutions for
learning analytics, and tactical approaches to deploy student-driven insights to
academics. Pablo has published extensively in these fields and received fund­
ing from different agencies. He is currently Editor in Chief of the Journal of
Marine Biology and Ecology and Editor of Oecologia, having served on several
other boards.

Ronit Nehemia serves as the head supervisor of the Technological Data Analy­
sis discipline for high school students at the Israeli Ministry of Education. She
has a master’s degree from Bar Ilan University in Israel in Data Science. She
served as a national supervision supervisor and is responsible for the 21st Cen­
tury Education System Adaptation Program at the Ministry of Education.

Andreas Oranje is Vice President of Assessment and Learning Technology

Development for Educational Testing Service (ETS)’s Research & Development
(R&D) division, responsible for developing and maintaining testing programs
with an emphasis on optimizing structure and processes to increase efficiency
and innovation. A key member of the R&D leadership team, he is also respon­
sible for leading and optimizing the assessment and learning development port­
folio and provides strategic, tactical, and financial oversight. Andreas joined
ETS in 2001 as an associate research scientist. During his tenure at ETS, Oranje
has held a variety of roles, including Psychometric Manager and Psychomet­
ric Director; NAEP Project Director for Design, Analysis, and Reporting; and
Principal Research Director. His most recent position was General Manager,
Research, where he directed, managed and set strategy for several of ETS’s core
innovation areas, including Natural Language Processing and Speech, Artificial
Intelligence, Cognitive Sciences, Virtual Performance Assessments, and Acces­
sibility Technology. He holds a master’s degree and PhD in quantitative psychol­
ogy from the University of Amsterdam. He served on the editorial board of the
Journal of Educational Measurement and was program chair for AERA Division
D. He has presented at numerous conferences and has written extensively on
large-scale assessment methodology, game-based assessment, and artificial intel­
ligence in education.

Joanna Paliszkiewicz works as the Director of the Management Institute at

the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. She is an adjunct
professor at the University of Vaasa in Finland. She is well recognized in Poland
xxxii Online Learning Analytics

and abroad for her expertise in management issues: knowledge management

and trust management. She has published over 210 papers and manuscripts and
is the author/co-author/editor of 13 books. She has been a part of many schol­
arship endeavors in the United States, Ireland, Slovakia, Taiwan, the United
Kingdom, and Hungary. She has actively participated in presenting research
results at various international conferences. Currently, she serves as the Deputy
Editor-in-Chief of the Management and Production Engineering Review. She is
an associate editor for the Journal of Computer Information Systems, Expert Sys­
tems with Applications, and Intelligent Systems with Applications. She is the Vice
President of the Polish Association for Production Engineering. She also serves
as chair of the International Cooperation in European Business Club. She serves
as the Vice President of the International Association for Computer Information
Systems in the United States. She is a board member of the Intellectual Capital
Accreditation Association. She has successfully supervised many PhD students,
leading them to completion of their degrees. She has also served as an external
reviewer for several PhD students in Poland, India, and Finland. She is actively
involved in participating in the scientific committees of many international con­
ferences. She was named the 2013 Computer Educator of the Year by IACIS.

Paul Prinsloo is a Research Professor in Open and Distance Learning (ODL)

in the Department of Business Management, in the College of Economic and
Management Sciences, University of South Africa (Unisa). Since 2015, he is also
a Visiting Professor at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Ger­
many, a Fellow of the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN),
and serves on several editorial boards. Paul is an internationally recognized
speaker, scholar, and researcher and has published numerous articles in the fields
of teaching and learning, student success in distance education contexts, learn­
ing analytics, and curriculum development. His current research focuses on
the collection, analysis, and use of student data in learning analytics, graduate
supervision, and digital identity.

Bart Pursel is the Director of Innovation within Teaching and Learning with
Technology (TLT) at Penn State. In this role, Bart ensures the University is posi­
tioned to effectively incorporate various technologies into the teaching and learn­
ing ecosystem. By utilizing expertise in instructional design, research, learning
spaces, and emerging technology, he works with faculty to align TLT’s programs,
platforms, and services to the needs of the Penn State community. Coming
from a diverse background of instructional design, teaching, and research, his
interests reside at the intersection of technology and pedagogy. Bart’s current
projects focus on areas such as AI in education, learning spaces, and immersive
 Contributing Authors xxxiii

experiences. He is also an Affiliate Associate Research Professor in the College of

Information Sciences and Technology, where he teaches large, general education
courses. Bart received his PhD from Penn State in Workforce Education and
Development, his MS from Bloomsburg University in Instructional Technology,
and BA from Bloomsburg University in Mass Communications.

Jessica Resig is a Senior Instructional Designer with Penn State World Campus
and is the lead designer for the World Campus business portfolio. She joined
Penn State in 2013 and has collaborated with faculty and program directors
to design, develop, and offer a variety of online, hybrid, and executive-style
programs. Jessica teaches courses in instructional technology and maintains an
active research portfolio. She holds a master’s degree in instructional technology
from Duquesne University and a PhD in Instructional Design and Technology
from Old Dominion University.

Bart Rienties is Professor of Learning Analytics and programme lead of the

learning analytics and learning design research programme at the Institute of
Educational Technology at the Open University UK. He leads a group of aca­
demics who provide university-wide learning analytics and learning design solu­
tions and conduct evidence-based research of how students and professionals
learn. As an educational psychologist, he conducts multi-disciplinary research
on work-based and collaborative learning environments and focuses on the role
of social interaction in learning, which is published in leading academic journals
and books.

K. Rebecca “Becca” Marsh Runyon serves as Managing Sr. Learning Scientist

within Educational Testing Service’s Personalized Learning & Assessment Lab­
oratory. She has worked primarily in higher education technology digital strat­
egy development and product design as a learning researcher, scientist/designer,
and assessment specialist. She’s passionate about innovative, integrated learning
and formative assessment solutions; learning analytics; and the holistic insights
and actionable interventions these afford learners. She is committed to advanc­
ing quality and equity in education and is grateful to contribute to work at ETS,
given its mission and ability to deliver on this promise. Becca holds a master’s
degree in Cognitive Science and PhD in Assessment and Measurement from
James Madison University.

Guillermo Santamaría-Bonfil has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Systems

and a PhD in Computer Sciences from the Monterrey Institute of Technology
and Higher Education (ITESM). He has two postdoctoral years of experience
xxxiv Online Learning Analytics

at the Applied Mathematics and Systems Research Institute from the National
Autonomous University of Mexico (IIMAS-UNAM) with Dr. Carlos Gersh­
enson, working with complex systems and data science. He is an enthusiastic
data scientist with experience in applied machine learning and over six years of
time series forecasting insight in the fields of finance, renewable energies, and
learning analytics. He has experience as a data scientist in risk modelling for the
banking sector and learning analytics for the power systems sector. He has pub­
lished seven articles in high-impact journals such as Renewable Energy and Com­
puters & Education. He is member of the Applied Computational Intelligence
Network (RedICA), the Mexican Academy of Computation (AMEXCOMP),
the International Institute of Forecasters (IIF), to mention a few.

Sharon Slade worked for 20 years as a senior lecturer at the Open University
(UK), where she led projects which fed into teaching and learning across the uni­
versity. She led the team which developed policy for the ethical use of learning
analytics and acted as an active member of several international teams develop­
ing ethical codes of practice for uses of student data. Ongoing interests relate to
ethical issues in learning analytics. Sharon currently works for an environmental
charity, The Earth Trust, in the UK.

Sarah J. Shin is Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at UMBC, where she is
also Professor of Education and the 2017–2020 Presidential Research Professor.
A member of the Provost’s Office senior leadership, Shin coordinates academic
program reviews and new program development and leads a number of campus-
wide initiatives aimed at improving student success. Shin brings extensive expe­
rience in leadership and shared governance, including her two-term service as
president of Faculty Senate and as an American Council on Education (ACE)
Fellow (2017–2018).

Edyta Skarzyńska earned her master’s degree in 2020 at the Faculty of Eco­
nomics at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. The area of her master’s thesis
was knowledge management. Currently, she is a first-year PhD student at the
Doctoral School of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. Her area of research
is intellectual capital. Her scientific achievements include a publication in the
field of knowledge management.

Pete Smith is Chief Analytics Officer and Professor of Modern Languages

at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he also holds the AP Endowed
Chair in Online Learning and Innovation. He is the founding administrator of
University Analytics at UTA, which engages data scientists toward achieving
 Contributing Authors xxxv

the strategic academic and business goals of the university. His teaching and
scholarship focus on big data in education, natural language processing and
natural language understanding, as well as machine translation. Additionally,
he oversees UTA’s Localization and Translation program, offered to students
of seven critical languages as an introduction to the language services industry.

Esther van der Stappen obtained her MSc degree in Computer Science from
the University of Groningen in 2003 and her PhD in Computer Science at
Utrecht University in 2008. Until 2020, she was an Associate Professor at HU
University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, leading a research group on digital inno­
vation in education. Currently, she is a Professor of Applied Sciences, leading the
research group Digital Education at Avans University of Applied Sciences. Her
research interests include learning analytics, technology-enhanced learning, and
blended and hybrid learning.

Olga Viberg is Associate Professor in Media Technology with specialization in

Technology-Enhanced Learning, Department of Media Technology and Inter­
action Design, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. She
received her PhD in Informatics from Örebro University (Sweden). Her fields of
expertise include technology-enhanced learning, self-regulated learning, learn­
ing analytics, mobile learning, learning design, and design science research in
education. Her work has been published in many high-ranked, referred journals
and conferences. She is an active member of the Society for Learning Analytics
Research and the European Association of Technology-Enhanced Learning.

Deborah West is Pro Vice Chancellor (Learning and Teaching Innovation)

and oversees the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at Flinders
University. Her research has encompassed both her discipline (social work) and
learning and teaching, with a particular focus on the use of technology in higher
education learning and teaching. Since 2012, this research has focused on the
use of learning analytics to support and improve pedagogical approaches, teach­
ing practice, and learning in the online space. She has published extensively, pro­
viding insights into the application of learning analytics from the perspective of
students, teaching academics, and institutions as well as ethical considerations
for responsible use of data to support these purposes.
About the Editor
Dr. Jay Liebowitz is a Visiting Professor in the Stillman School of Business
and the MS-Business Analytics Capstone & Co-Program Director (External
Relations) at Seton Hall University. He previously served as the Distinguished
Chair of Applied Business and Finance at Harrisburg University of Science and
Technology. Before HU, he was the Orkand Endowed Chair of Management
and Technology in the Graduate School at the University of Maryland Univer­
sity College (UMUC). He served as a Professor in the Carey Business School at
Johns Hopkins University. He was ranked one of the top 10 knowledge manage­
ment researchers/practitioners out of 11,000 worldwide, and was ranked #2 in
KM Strategy worldwide, according to the January 2010 Journal of Knowledge
Management. At Johns Hopkins University, he was the founding Program Direc­
tor for the Graduate Certificate in Competitive Intelligence and the Capstone
Director of the MS-Information and Telecommunications Systems for Business
Program, where he engaged over 30 organizations in industry, government, and
not-for-profits in capstone projects.
Prior to joining Hopkins, Dr. Liebowitz was the first Knowledge Management
Officer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Before NASA, Dr. Liebowitz
was the Robert W. Deutsch Distinguished Professor of Information Systems at
the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Professor of Management Sci­
ence at George Washington University, and Chair of Artificial Intelligence at
the U.S. Army War College.
Dr. Liebowitz is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Expert Systems With Applica­
tions: An International Journal (published by Elsevier; ranked as a top-tier jour­
nal; Thomson Impact Factor from June 2021 is 6.45). He is a Fulbright Scholar,
IEEE-USA Federal Communications Commission Executive Fellow, and Com­
puter Educator of the Year (International Association for Computer Informa­
tion Systems). He has published over 45 books and myriad journal articles on
knowledge management, analytics, financial literacy, intelligent systems, and
IT management.

xxxvii
xxxviii Online Learning Analytics

Dr. Liebowitz served as the Editor-in-Chief of Procedia-CS (Elsevier). He is

also the Series Book Editor of the Data Analytics Applications book series (Taylor
& Francis), as well as the Series Book Editor of the new Digital Transformation:
Accelerating Organizational Intelligence book series (World Scientific Publishing).
In October 2011, the International Association for Computer Information
Systems named the “Jay Liebowitz Outstanding Student Research Award” for
the best student research paper at the IACIS Annual Conference. Dr. Liebowitz
was the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Business at Queen’s University for
the Summer 2017 and a Fulbright Specialist at Dalarna University in Sweden
in May 2019. He is in the Top 2% of the top scientists in the world, according
to a 2019 Stanford Study. His recent books are Data Analytics and AI (Taylor &
Francis, 2021), The Business of Pandemics: The COVID-19 Story (Taylor & Fran­
cis, 2021), and A Research Agenda for Knowledge Management and Analytics (Elgar
Publishers, 2021). He has lectured and consulted worldwide.
Chapter 1
Leveraging Learning
Analytics for Assessment
and Feedback
Dirk Ifenthaler1 and Samuel Greiff 2

Abstract

This chapter critically reflects the current state of research in learning analytics
and educational assessment. Given the omnipresence of technology-enhanced
assessment approaches, vast amounts of data are produced in such systems, which
open further opportunities for advancing assessment and feedback systems as
well as pedagogical assessment practice. A yet-to-be-solved limitation of learn­
ing analytics frameworks is the lack of a stronger focus on dynamic or real-time
assessment and feedback, as well as the improvement of learning environments.
Therefore, a benefits matrix for analytics-enhanced assessment is suggested,
which provides examples on how to harness data and analytics for educational
assessment. Further, a framework for implementing analytics-enhanced assess­
ment is suggested. The chapter concludes with a critical reflection on current
challenges for making use of analytics data for educational assessments. Clearly,

1 University of Mannheim and Curtin University

2 University of Luxembourg

1
2 Online Learning Analytics

stakeholders in the educational arena need to address ethics and privacy issues
linked to analytics-enhanced assessments.

Keywords:Assessment, feedback, learning analytics, analytics-enhanced assessment

Introduction

A recent search in scientific databases identified an increase of research publica­

tions focusing on assessment from the 1950s to the 2020s by over 380%. Despite
an intense debate over the past seven decades, the distinction between forma­
tive and summative assessment has not resulted in a precise definition, and the
distinction between the two remains blurry (Newton, 2007). To the contrary,
other terms have been introduced, such as learning-oriented assessment (Carless,
2007), emphasizing the development of learning elements of assessment; sustain­
able assessment (Boud, 2000), proposing the support of student learning beyond
the formal learning setting; or stealth assessment (Shute et al., 2016), denoting
assessments that take place in the background without the user noticing it.
More recently, technology-enhanced assessments enriched standard or paper-based
assessment approaches, some of which hold much promise for supporting learning
(Webb et al., 2013; Webb & Ifenthaler, 2018b). While much effort in institutional
and national systems is focused on harnessing the power of technology-enhanced
approaches in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency (Bennett, 2015), a range
of different technology-enhanced assessment scenarios have been the focus of edu­
cational research and development—however, often at small scale (Stödberg, 2012).
For example, technology-enhanced assessments may involve a pedagogical
agent for providing feedback during a learning process (Johnson & Lester, 2016).
Other scenarios of technology-enhanced assessments include analyses of a learner’s
decisions and interactions during game-based learning (Bellotti et al., 2013;
Ifenthaler et al., 2012; Kim & Ifenthaler, 2019), scaffolding for dynamic task
selection including related feedback (Corbalan et al., 2009), remote asynchronous
expert feedback on collaborative problem-solving tasks (Rissanen et al., 2008), or
semantic rich and personalized feedback as well as adaptive prompts for reflection
through data-driven assessments (Ifenthaler, 2012).
Accordingly, it is expected that technology-enhanced assessment systems meet
a number of specific requirements, such as (a) adaptability to different subject
domains, (b) flexibility for experimental as well as learning and teaching set­
tings, (c) management of huge amounts of data, (d) rapid analysis of complex
and unstructured data, (e) immediate feedback for learners and educators, as well
as (f ) generation of automated reports of results for educational decision making
(Ifenthaler et al., 2010).
 Leveraging Learning Analytics for Assessment and Feedback 3

With the increased availability of vast and highly varied amounts of data from
learners, teachers, learning environments, and administrative systems within
educational settings, further opportunities arise for advancing pedagogical assess­
ment practice (Ifenthaler et al., 2018). Analytics-enhanced assessment harnesses
formative as well as summative data from learners and their contexts (e.g., learning
environments) in order to facilitate learning processes in near real time and help
decision makers to improve learning environments. Hence, analytics-enhanced
assessment may provide multiple benefits for students, schools, and involved stake­
holders. However, as noted by Ellis (2013), analytics currently fail to make full use
of educational data for assessment.
This chapter critically reflects the current state of research in educational assess­
ment and identifies ways to harness data and analytics for assessment. Further,
a benefits matrix for analytics-enhanced assessment is suggested, followed by a
framework for implementing assessment analytics.

Current State of Educational Assessment

Tracing the history of educational assessment practice is challenging, as there

are a number of diverse concepts referring to the idea of assessment. Educational
assessment is a systematic method of gathering information or artefacts about
a learner and learning processes to draw inferences of the persons’ dispositions
(Baker et al., 2016). Scriven (1967) is often referred to as the original source of
the distinction between formative and summative assessment. However, forma­
tive and summative assessment are considered to be overlapping concepts, and
the function depends on how the inferences are used (Black & Wiliam, 2018).
Newton (2007) notes that the distinction between formative and summative
assessment hindered the development of sound assessment practices on a broader
level. In this regard, Taras (2005) states that every assessment starts with the sum­
mative function of judgment, and by using this information for providing feed­
back for improvement, the function becomes formative. Bloom et al. (1971) were
concerned with the long-lasting idea of assessment separating learners based on a
summative perspective of knowledge and behavior—the assessment of learning.
In addition, Bloom et al. (1971) supported the idea of developing the individual
learner and supporting the learner and teacher towards mastery of a phenom­
enon—the assessment for learning.
Following this discourse, Sadler (1989) developed a theory of formative assess­
ment and effective feedback. Formative assessment helps students to understand their
current state of learning and guides them in taking action to achieve their learning
goals. A similar line of argumentation can be found in Black (1998), in which three
main types of assessment are defined: (a) formative assessment to aid learning; (b)
4 Online Learning Analytics

summative assessment for review, transfer, and certification; (c) summative assess­
ment for accountability to the public. Pellegrino et al. (2001) extend these definitions
with three main purposes of assessment: (a) assessment to assist learning (formative
assessment); (b) assessment of individual student achievement (summative assess­
ment); and (c) assessment to evaluate programs (evaluative assessment).
To facilitate learning through assessment, Carless (2007) emphasizes that assess­
ment tasks should be learning tasks that are related to the defined learning out­
comes and distributed across the learning and course period. Furthermore, to foster
learners’ responsibility for learning (Bennett, 2011; Wanner & Palmer, 2018) and
self-regulation (Panadero et al., 2017), self-assessments are suitable means. In gen­
eral, self-assessments include students’ judgment and decision making about their
work and comprise three steps: definition of the expectations, evaluating the work
against the expectations, and revising the work (Andrade, 2010). Consequently, as
Sadler (1989) argues, self-monitoring and external feedback are related to formative
assessment, with the aim to evolve from using external feedback to self-monitoring
to independently identify gaps for improvement. Hence, self-assessments enable
learners to develop independence of relying on external feedback (Andrade, 2010).
However, self-assessment demands but also fosters evaluative judgment of learn­
ers (Panadero et al., 2019; Tai et al., 2018). Thus, self-assessments might be particu­
larly challenging for learners with lower levels of domain or procedural knowledge
(Sitzmann et al., 2010). Hence, the feedback generated internally by the learners
could be complemented and further enhanced with external feedback (Butler
& Winne, 1995). Such external feedback may help learners to adjust their self-
monitoring (Sitzmann et al., 2010). Among others, the feedback provided should
clearly define expectations (i.e., criteria, standards, goals), be timely, sufficiently
frequent and detailed, be on aspects that are malleable through the students, be on
how to close the gap, in a way learners can react upon it (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005;
Nicol & Macfarlane‐Dick, 2006). Furthermore, assessment and feedback processes
shall actively include the learner as an agent in the process (Boud & Molloy, 2013).
However, offering formative assessments and individual feedback are limited in
many ways throughout higher education due to resource constraints (Broadbent et
al., 2017; Gibbs & Simpson, 2005).
Assessment as learning is a concept that reflects a renewed focus on the nature
of the integration of assessment and learning (Webb & Ifenthaler, 2018a). Key
aspects of assessment as learning include the centrality of understanding the learn­
ing gap and the role of assessment in helping students and teachers explore and
regulate this gap (Dann, 2014). Thus, feedback and the way students regulate their
response to feedback is critical for assessment as learning, just as it is for assess­
ment for learning (Perrenoud, 1998). Other active research areas focus on peer
assessment (Lin et al., 2016; Wanner & Palmer, 2018). Especially the opportuni­
ties of technology-enhanced peer interaction and the perceived potential for peer
 Leveraging Learning Analytics for Assessment and Feedback 5

feedback to contribute to learning experiences in digital learning environments,

such as massive open online courses (MOOCs), have been of recent research inter­
est (Adachi et al., 2018; Labarthe et al., 2016; van der Kleij & Adie, 2018).
Webb and Ifenthaler (2018a) present an overview of the range of different
opportunities for technology to support assessment with a view to providing a
vision for assessment design to move forward with designers, educators, and learn­
ers working together to design assessments. Their contribution includes a review
of key theoretical issues related to assessment and examines new and potential
approaches to assessment that are facilitated by technology as well as the challenges
that these new opportunities create.
The current state of research on educational assessment may be summarized
with a closer look at an iterative implementation cycle (see Figure 1.1 on next page).
The individual steps of the iterative implementation cycle of educational assess­
ment include a co-design process in which learning designers, psychometricians,
educators, and learners collaborate. The initial step clarifies learning intentions and
defines criteria for learning success. As a result, learning tasks are designed. These
tasks help to elicit evidence of individual learning processes. Evidence of learning
is further used to provide feedback whenever needed in order to support ongoing
learning processes. Learners are empowered as the owners of their learning pro­
cesses and may be supported by peer learners as additional sources for learning and
feedback. The final step of the iterative implementation cycle of educational assess­
ment includes critical reflections on learning processes and learning outcomes as
well as the previous steps of the cycle.
Clearly, each step may be supported or further enabled through technological
systems—for instance, through innovative assessment formats that are admin­
istered through educational technology. Given the omnipresence of technology-
enhanced assessment approaches, vast amount of data are produced in such
systems, which, in turn, open further opportunities for advancing assessment and
feedback systems.

Harnessing Data and Analytics for Assessment

Interest in collecting and mining large sets of educational data on student back­
ground and performance has grown over the past years and is generally referred
to as learning analytics (Baker & Siemens, 2015). In recent years, the incorpo­
ration of learning analytics into educational practices and research has further
developed. However, while new applications and approaches have brought forth
new insights, there is still a shortage of research addressing the effectiveness and
consequences of these endeavors (Vieira et al., 2018). Learning analytics, which
refers to the use of static and dynamic data from learners and their contexts for
6 Online Learning Analytics

Reflecting on Clarifying
learning learning
processes and intentions and
learning criteria for
outcomes success

Designing
Activating peer learning tasks
learners as that elicit
learning evidence of
resources learning
processes

Providing
Empowering
feedback that
learners as the
support the
owners of their
learning
learning process
processes

Figure 1.1 Iterative Implementation Cycle of Educational Assessment

(1) the understanding of learning and the discovery of traces of learning and (2)
the support of learning processes and educational decision making (Ifenthaler,
2015), offer a range of opportunities for formative and summative assessment.
Hence, the primary goal of learning analytics is to better meet students’ needs by
offering individual learning paths, adaptive assessments and recommendations,
or adaptive and just-in-time feedback (Gašević et al., 2015; McLoughlin & Lee,
2010), ideally, tailored to learners’ motivational states, individual characteristics,
and learning goals (Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018). Research suggests that
meaningful analysis of data requires sound theoretical grounding and modelling
as well as verification of validity, gained, for instance, in complex evidence-based
design processes (Marzouk et al., 2016; Shute et al., 2018).
Current learning analytics approaches focus on indicators based on the behavior
in the digital learning environment, such as time spent online, access to various
types of resources, or reading and writing posts, to relate them to learning per­
formance (Mah, 2016; Martin & Whitmer, 2016). Only a few approaches are
enriched with learner characteristics, such as demographic data or results of assess­
ments—for instance, to predict study success (Costa et al., 2017; Vieira et al., 2018;
Yau & Ifenthaler, 2020). Vieira et al. (2018) found that research studies on learning
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
n’importe où vous voudrez, à Beuzeval !… Grimpons sur la falaise !
Mais pour l’amour du ciel, bougeons, bougeons !…
— Guillemette !… vous êtes pareille au salpêtre, quand vous
vous y mettez !… Il ne vous suffit pas d’avoir été trempée tantôt et
d’avoir fait tremper Mlles de Mussy ?
Un sourire malicieux retrousse les lèvres de Guillemette.
— Pauvre savante Louise ! Elle n’aime pas l’eau… Ni son
humeur ni ses cheveux ne s’en accommodent !… Mais ça, c’est une
réflexion inutile et stupide ! Mon oncle, venez sur la plage… Vous
voulez bien, dites ?
Elle demande cela avec cette grâce jeune et câline qui lui donne
tant de séduction. Et René, faisant comme les autres, ne lui résiste
pas, tout en se demandant s’il est bien correct qu’il sorte ainsi, seul,
avec sa jeune nièce…
Elle n’a pas soupçon d’un pareil scrupule et grimpe joyeusement
vers les hauteurs de la falaise, par la belle route en corniche qui
monte au bois de sapins couronnant Houlgate. Une saute du vent a
balayé les nuées maussades et l’horizon flamboie, splendide, au
couchant qui éveille des visions d’un royaume du feu. Sur le sable,
des nappes d’eau semblent des petits lacs d’or étincelant. La mer
monte, striée, à l’infini, de coulées lumineuses… Au large, les
barques découpent, sur le ciel de flamme, des formes aiguës et
noires.
Guillemette s’est arrêtée et regarde. Avec une sorte de ferveur,
elle dit, un peu bas :
— C’est beau !… Comme c’est beau ! n’est-ce pas ? mon oncle.
Elle ne tourne pas la tête vers lui. Il voit seulement le profil
expressif, où les cils tracent une ligne sombre sur les joues, si
fraîches sous la brise qui enroule étroitement la robe autour du corps
svelte. Et, brusquement, il se souvient — comme il s’est souvenu
souvent depuis une semaine…
Combien de fois, durant l’été inoubliable, il a ainsi contemplé le
coucher du soleil, auprès de Nicole !… L’écho des souvenirs morts
tressaille en lui. Sans en avoir conscience, il écoute leur murmure
confus.
Des minutes et des minutes passent.
Guillemette regarde toujours l’horizon dont l’embrasement pâlit,
atteint par la cendre du crépuscule ; et, volontiers, elle aurait le geste
instinctif d’un enfant pour retarder la fin d’un spectacle qui
l’enchante.
Mais la féerie est achevée. Une brume violette se déploie
grandissante, pareille à un voile infini, sous lequel meurent, peu à
peu, contours, formes, lumières, engloutis par l’ombre victorieuse.
Les dernières nuées s’éteignent. Le ciel apparaît terne, d’un bleu
obscur, où tremble, solitaire, le feu d’une étoile.
Alors, rejetée hors du rêve, Guillemette reprend conscience de la
présence de René. Comme il a l’air grave !… A quoi peut-il bien
songer pour que ses traits prennent cette régularité sévère de
médaille, — qui lui va très bien d’ailleurs… Et spontanée elle
s’écrie :
— Oncle, vous avez l’air « tout chose » !… Vous ne pensez pas à
me donner Louise de Mussy pour tante ?
Il a un imperceptible sursaut de créature réveillée et, comme elle
se remet à marcher, il la suit, interrogeant, la pensée encore
distraite :
— Elle ne vous plairait pas ?
— Oh ! pas du tout !
L’aveu se fait avec un accent dont la conviction est expressive.
— … Elle est bien trop pontifiante, d’une science trop écrasante
et trop… en dehors… Et puis, elle reçoit si mal les averses !… C’est
que, dans la vie, il faut en recevoir souvent. Et de toute sorte !
— Guillemette, vous parlez comme l’Expérience elle-même ! Mais
si Mlle de Mussy que je trouve, moi, remplie de mérite, vous paraît à
ce point déplaisante, pourquoi voulez-vous qu’elle m’ait induit en la
tentation d’en faire un jour ma femme ?…
 — Oh ! mon oncle, parce que vous aimez les jeunes filles
savantes, correctes, religieuses, utiles à leurs semblables, etc.,
etc. !… Des jeunes filles de tout repos, enfin !
Sans savoir pourquoi, René a envie de regimber devant ce
jugement.
— Mais où prenez-vous tout ce que vous racontez ici ? jeune fille.
— Mais dans vos conversations avec maman !… Aussi, l’autre
soir, quand vous énumériez…, — comme la Raison elle-même ! —
les qualités qui vous paraissent nécessaires à une femme, je
pensais que j’aurais vraiment, sans chercher loin, à vous offrir la
fiancée de vos goûts !
— Ah ! vraiment ? fait René interrogateur. Depuis une semaine
qu’il vit près de sa nièce, il a pu constater qu’elle avait une pensée
fourmillante d’imprévus et qu’il pouvait s’attendre, de sa part, aux
confidences les plus diverses ; car elle a des lubies de gamine et
des réflexions de femme de cœur, amalgamées à des audaces
d’opinion, de pensée, de goûts, qui le désorientent, le choquent,
l’irritent même, mais l’intéressent et l’amusent. Ah ! ce n’est pas, il
doit le reconnaître, une personne banale que sa jeune nièce !
— Donc, vous avez une fiancée à me présenter ?
— Oui !… Puisque vous êtes un monsieur très sérieux, puisque
vous vous mariez sans emballement, pour avoir une compagne
agréable, bonne maîtresse de maison, instruite, vertueuse, vous
devriez épouser M’selle !
René est si surpris qu’il s’arrête court, un peu choqué.
— Guillemette, vous poussez vraiment trop loin la plaisanterie !
— Mais, mon oncle, je ne plaisante pas du tout !
— Ah !… Et d’où vous est venue cette lumineuse idée ?
— De la conviction que vous feriez ainsi, pour votre bonheur, une
œuvre méritoire ! Mademoiselle n’est pas riche. Elle se tourmente
beaucoup parce qu’elle a sa mère à soutenir et elle se fatigue tant !
Alors, mon oncle, comme vous êtes bon, que vous n’avez pas l’air
de tenir à l’argent, que vous aimez les femmes sérieuses, je trouve
qu’elle pourrait bien réaliser votre idéal…
— Je ne le crois pas, Guillemette, dit René si posément que
Guillemette est un peu saisie.
Tout en trottant, car l’heure du dîner les presse maintenant, elle
lève vers lui sa jolie tête et le regarde, envahie par une vague
inquiétude. Est-il fâché ?…
— Mon oncle, vous trouvez, dites, que je me mêle de ce qui ne
me regarde pas ? C’est que je plains tellement la pauvre M’selle
depuis que j’ai entrevu ce qu’est la vie pour elle… Chaque fois que
j’y pense, j’ai honte de moi !
René ne comprend pas bien :
— Puis-je, sans indiscrétion, Guillemette, vous demander
pourquoi vous êtes si sévère à votre égard ?
— Oh ! vous le pouvez, il n’y a pas de mystère !… C’est parce
que je constate alors à quel point je suis toujours occupée de vivre le
plus agréablement possible, quand il y a tant de femmes, même de
jeunes filles ! qui peinent — non par goût, certes !… Oh ! mon oncle,
vous ne trouvez pas qu’il y a des moments où cela devient une vraie
souffrance, quand on jouit de tout, de penser à toutes les misères
auxquelles on ne peut rien ?…
Ici, l’oncle René pardonne à Guillemette son idée saugrenue, de
lui offrir Mademoiselle comme fiancée.
 VI

Il est arrivé aux Passiflores une première série d’invités, conviés

par la politesse, la sympathie, par le sentiment familial et autres
motifs variés.
Et d’abord, une respectable cousine de Mme Seyntis, la
chanoinesse de Thorigny-Bergues, laide, spirituelle, masculine
d’allures et d’idées, la parole mordante. Puis un jeune ménage, très
chic et très amoureux, les de Coriolis. Monsieur est un camarade de
René Carrère, fraîchement marié ; et quoique Mme Seyntis juge que
le voisinage des jeunes époux n’a rien de bon pour une fille de l’âge
de Guillemette, elle a cependant invité les de Coriolis par sollicitude
fraternelle, dans l’espoir que le spectacle de leur félicité conjugale
mettrait René en goût.
Du côté masculin, deux célibataires, hôtes particuliers de
Raymond Seyntis : un peintre américain, Hawford, dont l’exposition
a été, à Paris, le succès artistique du printemps ; et un séduisant
vieux garçon, très admirateur des femmes dont il se fait volontiers le
directeur laïque ; ce qui lui fournit de précieux documents pour les
Revues qu’il donne dans les Cercles. Enfin Nicole de Miolan est
arrivée sous l’égide de ses père et mère.
Et tous ces hôtes, installés en des chambres confortables et
souriantes, ouvertes sur l’horizon de la mer, les odorants parterres
du jardin, ou les lointains verdoyants des coteaux, tous, en leurs
domiciles nouveaux, se préparent pour le dîner dont le premier coup
ne tardera pas à sonner.
Le seul habitant peut-être des Passiflores qui soit indifférent à
cette perspective, c’est M. Seyntis, qui, dans son cabinet, achève de
rédiger des ordres, des réponses aux lettres, billets, télégrammes,
accumulés comme chaque jour, — même à Houlgate, — sur son
bureau. Un pli barre son front. Il a cette physionomie absorbée et
lasse des hommes brûlés par le souci fiévreux d’affaires lourdes de
responsabilités ; car des fortunes sont engagées dans les parties.
Il ne ressemble guère, en ce moment, au brillant Raymond
Seyntis que connaît le monde.
Cependant sa femme, sereine dans un luxe qu’il lui paraît aussi
naturel de posséder que l’air pour respirer, donne, attentive
maîtresse de maison, ses derniers ordres au maître d’hôtel, pour la
rédaction des menus et le placement des invités selon une
impeccable hiérarchie.
Guillemette, pour sa part, s’applique de son mieux à sa toilette du
soir. Pas un atome de poudre sur son visage, c’est sa coquetterie ;
les cheveux relevés avec de jolies ondulations molles, dues à la
seule nature, et tordus en un nœud capricieux, qui dégage bien la
nuque ; sous l’étoffe légère du corsage, la taille libre, dressée
comme le jet souple d’une jeune plante.
Certes, ce n’est pas tous les jours que Guillemette s’habille avec
un entier détachement de l’effet à produire. Mais ce soir, en
particulier, elle est stimulée par le désir très vif, peu noble, elle ne se
le dissimule pas, de n’être pas éclipsée ; ni par la jeune baronne de
Coriolis, ni surtout par Nicole, la savoureuse Nicole, comme l’appelle
son père. Chose bizarre, c’est, avant tout, aux yeux de l’oncle René
qu’elle souhaite pouvoir soutenir la comparaison.
Il a beau n’être, pour elle, qu’un homme très sérieux qu’elle
considère un peu comme un dieu protecteur, perché sur un piédestal
fait de sagesse et de raison… Tout de même, elle tient, en sa petite
vanité féminine, à ce que, près de Nicole, il ne la juge pas
dépourvue quant aux avantages périssables…
 Sa pensée est fourmillante de points d’interrogation à son égard
et à celui de la jeune femme ; car le roman de jadis intéresse
prodigieusement sa jeune cervelle qui ignore, pressent, réfléchit…
— Peut-être, songe-t-elle, sceptique autant qu’un vieux moraliste,
sa passion pour elle a été une simple crise !… Tous les hommes
jeunes doivent passer par là, comme les petits enfants ont la
rougeole ! Il a l’air tellement guéri ! Et il est si peu romanesque !…
C’est triste qu’on puisse ainsi aimer et oublier…
C’est tout en inspectant l’ondulation de ses cheveux que
Guillemette agite ce problème sentimental.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
René Carrère est-il vraiment guéri comme le croit Guillemette,
comme il le croit lui-même ?
Ayant déjà revêtu sa tenue du soir, il est debout devant la porte-
fenêtre de son balcon ; et, avec des yeux qui ne voient rien des
choses extérieures, il contemple obstinément un bouquet d’arbres
dressé derrière la pelouse.
Il pense que, dans quelques instants, il va se retrouver devant la
femme qui a été la folie de sa jeunesse et il éprouve une sorte
d’orgueilleuse satisfaction parce qu’il lui semble être sincèrement
calme. Le temps a fait son œuvre. Où est la vague de passion qui,
jadis, l’a soulevé au-dessus de lui-même ?… Tout au plus, il peut
noter en lui une naturelle curiosité de savoir ce qu’elle est devenue.
Il ne l’a pas encore revue puisqu’il n’était pas à la gare pour son
arrivée. Une petite lâcheté, cela, dont il s’irrite maintenant. Pourquoi
avoir retardé une rencontre qui lui est pénible, parce que,
fatalement, elle fera tressaillir le fantôme du passé ?
— Eh bien, soit. C’est un moment difficile à accepter : voilà
tout !… J’en ai vu bien d’autres ! murmure-t-il avec un haussement
d’épaules.
Oui, il en a connu d’autres qui demeurent son secret… D’abord,
dans ces mêmes Passiflores, des heures folles de passion, de
révolte, de désespoir, — dont il a eu honte plus tard, — quand, après
l’avoir enivré et torturé de sa beauté qui culbutait en lui toute
sagesse, elle a répondu, à son aveu, suppliant comme une prière,
qu’elle en aimait un autre.
Ah ! qu’il l’a revue longtemps, telle qu’elle était en cette minute,
un soir, sur la terrasse des Passiflores !… De ses doigts nus, elle
déchiquetait une rose, tout en parlant. Dans la pénombre, il
distinguait son regard velouté qui ne voyait que l’absent, la fleur
vivante de sa bouche dont il appelait le baiser.
Oui, il a fallu des mois et encore des mois pour que la vision
s’effaçât comme l’exigeait sa volonté, impérieuse d’autant plus que
Nicole devenait la femme de l’autre…
Mais de ce jour, vraiment, elle a été une morte pour lui. Ainsi le
commandait sa conscience, rigoureusement scrupuleuse, quant au
respect du bien d’autrui.
Alors pourquoi redoute-t-il de la voir ?
C’est une inconnue que cette Nicole échappée, frémissante, au
lien conjugal, passionnément voulu, et qu’elle prétend achever de
rompre par le divorce… Résolution qui froisse en lui ses vieux
instincts héréditaires de catholique convaincu, fidèle au respect du
serment reçu par le prêtre.
Oh ! non, Nicole de Miolan n’a plus rien de commun avec la
jeune fille qu’il a adorée, à laquelle il songe dans le beau crépuscule
d’août, ainsi que l’on songe aux morts infiniment chers…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A travers la cloison, sonne un éclat de rire, jailli de la grande
chambre aux tentures pékinées où vient d’être installé le jeune
ménage de Coriolis. Si les yeux de René Carrère pouvaient percer la
muraille, ils verraient son ami nonchalamment allongé dans un
confortable fauteuil, la cigarette aux lèvres, suivant d’un œil
amoureux tous les mouvements de sa blonde petite femme qui
trottine du cabinet de toilette à la chambre, peu enveloppée par son
peignoir de linon, ouvragé de dentelle.
 Au passage, il saisit la main qui fait un choix dans le coffret à
bijoux et attire vers lui la jeune femme. Elle proteste, — sans
conviction, d’ailleurs.
— Oh ! Georges, voyons, sois sérieux !… Laisse-moi m’habiller…
Je serai en retard et ce sera une catastrophe !… Que dira Mme
Seyntis ?… Pour la première fois que je suis reçue chez elle !… Tu
n’as vraiment pas l’air de te douter que nous sommes dans une
maison convenable !
— Hum, en ce qui concerne Raymond Seyntis…
Et il soulève les dentelles de la manche large. Sa bouche erre,
gourmande, sur la peau qui embaume l’iris.
Elle ne se défend pas du tout et s’écrie seulement, avec une
drôle de petite moue :
— Georges, tu es un monstre de volupté !
— Oh ! oh ! madame, quel grand mot !… Ce me semble qu’il y a
des heures où vous ne vous plaignez pas de cette qualité de votre
mari.
Elle se met à rire et riposte :
— Mon Dieu, mon amour, que tu fais donc des réflexions
absurdes !
— Madame, le ciel en soit témoin ! vous manquez de respect à
votre époux… Venez implorer votre pardon.
Il la met sur ses genoux. Elle proteste encore, mais très mal :
— Georges ! Georges ! tu vas me décoiffer !… Et mes cheveux
étaient si bien arrangés.
— Je vous recoifferai, ma petite femme.
Et il glisse ses doigts dans la soie blonde des cheveux qui
semblent faits de lumière.
Elle bondit à terre, la mine fâchée — et tendre :
— Georges, tu es insupportable ! Je serai ce soir comme un
chien fou… Ce sera de ta faute… Et tout le monde se demandera
comment tu as pu épouser une si laide femme…
 — Un monstre de volupté, peut-être, glisse-t-il malicieusement.
— Bon, bon, monsieur… On se souviendra comme vous jugez
votre femme ! Maintenant, laisse-moi m’habiller, mon chéri. Tu es
horripilant, mais je t’adore !
Il n’est pas sûr qu’il lui rendrait sa liberté si un choc discret ne
heurtait la porte. C’est la camériste de Madame qui revient pour
l’habiller.
Madame, aussitôt, est à l’autre bout de la chambre — dans la
partie solitaire ! — et, d’un ton détaché, crie :
— Entrez.
Elle est plus que rose. Toutefois la camériste est trop occupée du
vaporeux nuage qu’elle apporte avec soin, pour se permettre aucune
réflexion intempestive :
— Madame veut-elle que je la chausse d’abord ?
— Oui, je préfère.
Quelques minutes plus tard. Madame, en petits souliers, est
debout devant sa glace, les épaules nues sous le ruban de la
chemise, mince dans le soyeux jupon ; et elle est tout absorbée par
le souci de faire disparaître sur sa nuque la trace des doigts trop
caressants de Monsieur ; lequel, sans enthousiasme, a quitté son
excellent fauteuil et sa cigarette pour endosser enfin l’habit de
rigueur.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pendant que se déroulent ces menus épisodes, dans la petite
chambre qui est son home, Mademoiselle, attendant le deuxième
coup de cloche, relit encore une fois les lignes, reçues le matin, qui
lui apportent le parfum de la « maison ».
« … Oui, ma chère petite fille, comme toi, nous aspirons, ta sœur
et moi, à la fin de notre séparation et nous voudrions bien que ce fût
fini de t’aimer de loin…
« Oui, je comprends qu’il te soit triste de vivre parmi des
étrangers, même très aimables pour toi… Et pourtant, mon enfant
chérie, pourtant, je ne puis regretter que tu aies eu le courage de
partir, de nous laisser !… D’abord, parce que je pense que ce séjour
au bord de la mer sera fortifiant pour toi, après ta dure année de
travail ; bien meilleur que les mois de vacances dans la petite
fournaise qui nous sert de gîte, où la température se fait vite
étouffante malgré nos persiennes closes dès que le soleil vient nous
brûler…
« Et puis, ma Jeanne, il était raisonnable, sage, de ne pas
négliger cette occasion de te faire connaître dans un milieu fortuné
où tu peux trouver des leçons, peut-être, dans l’avenir.
« Car, en effet, plus que jamais, ma bien-aimée, il nous faut
penser à l’exiguité de notre budget et ne négliger aucune chance de
l’assurer un peu. J’aime mieux te l’avouer, pour que l’idée d’être le
soutien de ta pauvre vieille maman te rende vaillante, les démarches
de ta sœur pour arriver au poste d’inspectrice que tu sais ont
définitivement échoué. Les candidates sont légion, toutes pourvues
de titres sérieux, bien autrement recommandées que ta sœur !… et
les places vacantes se présentent comme des exceptions…
« Ta sœur a été très aimablement reçue par le secrétaire général
qui a cru préférable de lui ôter tout espoir, avec preuves à l’appui,
afin qu’elle ne se leurre pas inutilement. Antoinette est donc revenue
très découragée de cette visite, chaque jour lui montrant davantage,
hélas ! combien il est difficile à une femme de gagner sa vie. Mais tu
connais son énergie. Déjà, elle cherche une autre voie.
« Ah ! ma petite fille, confions-nous à Dieu qui, bien mieux que
nous, sait ce qui nous convient. Acceptons bravement ce qu’il veut
pour nous, et notre épreuve nous semblera bien moins lourde… Je
te le dis, chérie, comme je l’ai senti bien des fois ; et c’est mon cœur
même de maman qui te le murmure avec toute sa tendresse pour
que tu espères malgré tout… ainsi que je le fais… Soyons
courageuses, heureuses de vivre les unes pour les autres, toutes
trois… »
Mademoiselle devine plus qu’elle ne lit les dernières lignes parce
que le jour se meurt, surtout parce que de grosses larmes brouillent
son regard… Alors, elle se penche sur la chère écriture et y dépose
un baiser fervent.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Deux portes plus loin, chez les parents de Nicole, l’humeur n’est
pas très souriante du côté de Monsieur, qui est un homme
d’habitudes, vite nerveux, pour peu qu’il ne trouve pas ses affaires
disposées dans leur ordre coutumier. Or, étant aux Passiflores
depuis deux heures à peine, il traverse la période d’installation, ce
qui influe fâcheusement sur son humeur et le fait saupoudrer de
conseils, questions, voire même reproches, non seulement la femme
de chambre, mais encore sa dévouée épouse. Il est, en effet, de ces
hommes excellents — et terribles ! — qui ne peuvent se tenir de
donner leur avis sur toute chose, petite ou grande, et s’étonnent
ensuite avec simplicité de voir les gens continuer à agir suivant leur
propre guise.
Tout en parcourant un journal, il monologue sur les sujets les plus
étrangers à la politique.
— Je trouve l’air fatigué et soucieux à Seyntis. C’est un joueur un
peu trop audacieux, je le crains. Je le lui ai dit… Mais c’est un
garçon qui n’a confiance qu’en lui-même ! Ta cousine, elle, est
toujours fraîche et sereine, et Guillemette a encore embelli !
Il est interrompu dans ses réflexions par le bruit d’un carton que
Mme d’Harbourg a laissé tomber ; malgré sa corpulence elle est très
active et aime à ranger par elle-même.
— Mon Dieu, Pauline, comme tu t’agites ! Laisse donc faire la
femme de chambre… Sais-tu où elle a mis mes cravates ?… Je ne
les retrouvais pas tout à l’heure.
M. d’Harbourg est plutôt coquet. Il a été très joli homme et il est
encore un beau gentilhomme frais et rose sous ses cheveux blancs,
coupés en brosse.
— Mon ami, elles sont dans le tiroir de la commode.
— Elles auraient été beaucoup mieux dans l’armoire à glace. Je
les aurais choisies bien plus facilement.
 — Si tu le désires, mon ami, je dirai à Céline de les y remettre
demain.
— Oh ! puisque la maladresse est commise, ne changeons rien.
Tu mets cette robe-là, ce soir ?… Une robe noire !… C’est bien
foncé. Tu sais pourtant que je préfère les robes de couleur !
— Mais, Charles, ma robe est toute perlée de jais… Elle n’est
pas sombre !
— Bien… bien, ma bonne amie. Habille-toi comme tu l’entends.
Je n’y connais rien. C’est convenu !
Un silence. Mme d’Harbourg sort quelques bibelots de son sac.
La pendule sonne la demie de six heures. M. d’Harbourg rejette son
journal.
— Eh ! Eh ! si tard déjà ? Il faut que je m’habille. Pauline, ma
chère amie, veux-tu bien sonner Alfred pour qu’il m’apporte mes
souliers vernis.
— Charles, ils sont là, près de toi.
— S’ils y étaient, je ne les demanderais pas. Je ne suis pas un
idiot !
Sans relever cette imprudente déclaration, Mme d’Harbourg se
penche et prend les escarpins à côté du fauteuil de Monsieur, qui ne
dit mot, ne pouvant ni ne voulant se tenir pour « un idiot ».
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nicole de Miolan, elle, n’est occupée ni de rangements, ni de
toilette. Les coudes sur l’appui de la fenêtre, le visage sur ses mains
jointes, elle songe, insouciante des minutes qui fuient…
Elle aussi pense à la rencontre qu’elle va faire ; et une curiosité
un peu perverse la distrait d’elle-même, du souvenir de son passé
d’épouse qui la hante, l’enveloppant comme un douloureux cilice.
Elle n’a jamais eu pour son cousin René Carrère plus qu’une
sincère amitié et beaucoup d’estime. Tel qu’elle le connaît, — s’il n’a
pas changé… — il est revenu de son exil volontaire parce qu’il
jugeait pouvoir la retrouver, sans craindre de faiblir devant le devoir
strict qui est son maître, — aujourd’hui, sans doute, comme
autrefois. Pour elle, il est à peine plus qu’un indifférent. Pourtant,
dans son âme désemparée, il y aura, elle le sait, un bizarre regret,
s’il est vraiment guéri tout à fait, et une tentation mauvaise de raviver
la flamme éteinte, — par vanité féminine, par besoin instinctif d’être
aimée. Elle est de celles qui ne peuvent vivre sans les caresses d’un
cœur où elles sont souveraines… Puis, en elle, il y a si vive une soif
d’oubli et aussi de vengeance pour celui qui l’avait prise toute :
corps, âme, pensée…
Il était, comme elle, ardent, passionné, volontaire et jaloux…
Combien ils se sont adorés, puis heurtés, — heurtés à se briser le
cœur !… Quelles scènes affreuses, elle a dans le souvenir…
Ah ! heureusement, tout cela, c’est le passé, maintenant ! En
février dernier, la rupture a été consommée entre eux et elle est
partie pour Paris, résolue au divorce. S’il a souhaité une
réconciliation, elle a refusé de le savoir, n’ouvrant pas les quelques
lettres qui, après un silence de plusieurs mois, lui sont arrivées de
Constantinople ! Il l’a trahie. Il l’a faussement soupçonnée. L’un
comme l’autre, ils se sont torturés. C’est fini entre eux, fini, fini ! Que
chacun donc recommence sa vie comme il l’entendra, s’il le peut…
Pourquoi donc y a-t-il encore des minutes où il se dresse en son
souvenir, pareil à un fantôme qui veut la reprendre.
— Ah ! je vous hais, autant que je vous ai adoré, murmure-t-elle,
les dents serrées, le regard perdu vers la mer, frémissante comme
son pauvre être… Je vous ai tout donné de moi, et vous m’avez
enlevé le bonheur, l’espoir, le respect de moi-même… Vous avez fait
de moi une épave qui va… je ne sais où… Oh ! oui, je vous hais ! Je
ferai tout, vous entendez, tout ! pour avoir l’oubli et la belle vie
d’amour que je veux, à n’importe quel prix !…
Vraiment, elle lui parle, comme s’il pouvait encore l’entendre, les
yeux sans larmes, les mains serrées par l’angoisse qui la meurtrit.
Ses joues sont brûlantes, et elle se penche instinctivement sur le
rebord de la fenêtre pour sentir la fraîcheur du vent qui fouette
l’écume des vagues.
 Pourquoi donc, ce soir, pense-t-elle ainsi à toutes ces choses qui
lui font tant de mal ? Est-ce la rencontre de René qui réveille le
passé ? Ah ! certes, près de lui, la vie n’eût pas été d’abord un
tourbillon d’ivresse, de bonheur, intense à certaines heures jusqu’à
en devenir une souffrance, puis une tempête où les nuées sombres,
parfois, laissaient encore jaillir un éblouissant rayon.
Lui, René, l’aurait aimée d’un amour grave et paisible, tel lui-
même.
— Ce n’est pas ainsi que je voulais l’être, murmure-t-elle encore,
sans remuer à peine les lèvres. N’a-t-elle pas toujours souhaité se
perdre dans l’amour comme dans un océan, pour s’y abîmer
divinement et follement !
Une cloche tinte.
— Madame entend-elle ? C’est le premier coup. Madame ne va
pas être habillée. Quelle robe madame a-t-elle décidé de mettre ?
Elle a un tressaillement. A peine, elle a entendu le son de la voix.
Mais, cessant de regarder la mer, elle aperçoit, devant elle, sa
femme de chambre qui l’attend, anxieuse par amour-propre
professionnel.
Elle répète machinalement :
— Quelle robe ?… La rose. Aline, je suis à vous.
Aline est adroite et vive. Quand éclate la sonnerie du deuxième
coup, Nicole est toute prête, merveilleusement habillée par le souple
crêpe de Chine qui s’enroule à sa forme parfaite.
Son âme et sa pensée sont redevenues closes pour tous. De
l’émotion qui l’a bouleversée un moment plus tôt, il ne reste d’autre
trace que l’éclat plus vif des joues et une lueur brûlante dans ses
beaux yeux passionnés. Elle glisse quelques fleurs dans la dentelle
de son corsage, décolleté sur la nuque et l’attache des épaules,
prend ses gants et descend.
Dans le salon, où errent capricieusement les dernières lueurs du
couchant, presque tous les hôtes des Passiflores se trouvent déjà
réunis. Auprès du fauteuil de Mme Seyntis, sont Mme d’Harbourg et
la chanoinesse. Celle-ci, laide, la lèvre duvetée, la voix haute, éveille
une surprise un peu effarée chez Mademoiselle qui, trompée par son
titre, s’attendait à voir en elle une sorte de nonne, pieusement
austère. Du coin du salon, où elle est assise à l’écart, Mademoiselle
en revient toujours à l’observer, quand elle ne croit pas devoir
surveiller Mad qui tourbillonne de la terrasse au salon, le nez au
vent, les yeux fureteurs sous la toison dorée de ses cheveux.
Et aussi, Mademoiselle est distraite du spectacle de la
chanoinesse, par l’entrée, dans le salon, de Guillemette qui a l’air
d’une aurore, pense-t-elle poétiquement. Puis, c’est l’apparition de la
jeune baronne de Coriolis ressemblant, elle, à un Watteau. Et une
fois de plus, Mademoiselle se sent très loin de ces élégantes
personnes dont les robes fragiles coûtent, pour le moins, ce qu’elle
gagne en un mois de labeur. Mais dans son âme, il n’y a pas un
atome d’envie ; seulement beaucoup d’humilité et une naïve
admiration pour ces créatures de luxe.
Et voici qu’à son tour, Nicole fait son entrée, longue, fine,
onduleuse dans la gaine de sa robe, les prunelles veloutées et
sombres sous les cheveux clairs qui ont l’éclat des feuilles brûlées
par l’automne. Ainsi, elle éveille la vision de quelque belle nymphe
d’un dieu d’amour.
Francis Hawford, le peintre, dresse la tête à son entrée et
murmure, l’enveloppant d’un regard d’artiste et d’homme :
— Diable ! la splendide créature !
Et ce doit être aussi l’opinion de Raymond Seyntis, car il a un
singulier accent pour lui dire, après avoir baisé sa main dégantée :
— Vous êtes toujours terriblement séduisante, ma nièce.
— Heureusement pour moi, mon oncle.
— Et pour nous !
L’un comme l’autre, ils savent très bien les pensées qui flottent
en leurs deux cerveaux. Pour un homme, sensible comme lui à la
beauté, elle a une saveur irritante : et si elle était une étrangère, il
succomberait à la tentation de goûter cette saveur. Mais la pensée
qu’il l’appelle « ma nièce » l’arrête dans les limites d’une galanterie
discrète, — imperceptiblement équivoque.
Elle fait encore quelques pas dans le salon. Puis elle s’arrête de
nouveau. Cette fois, c’est René Carrère qui la salue.
— Ah ! bonjour, René ! dit-elle de sa voix chaude, un peu
assourdie.
Ils sont face à face et se regardent. Au fond de leurs âmes, frémit
l’ombre du passé. Mais eux seuls le savent, — et Guillemette dont
les larges prunelles s’attachent à eux avec une expression profonde
et attentive.
Nicole pense qu’il a peu changé ; ses traits nettement découpés
ont toujours la même expression de volonté mâle et sereine. Ses
yeux ont gardé leur regard clair qui jamais n’a dû connaître le
mensonge, — et en ce moment, est presque dur.
Mais pour lui, elle est une autre femme, — tout à fait différente de
la jeune fille de jadis. Elle a le même délicieux visage où semble
palpiter le reflet de quelque mystérieuse flamme, la même bouche
affolante par sa fraîcheur, la grâce indéfinissable, ironique et
caressante du sourire… Pourtant cette Nicole-là n’est pas celle qu’il
a quittée, il y a quatre ans. Il s’est fait en elle une sorte
d’épanouissement superbe qui doit griser les hommes et effaroucher
les très honnêtes et très candides femmes comme Mme Seyntis.
Elle fait songer à quelque fleur magnifique dont le parfum serait
dangereusement capiteux.
Entre eux, il y a un silence de quelques secondes. Puis,
correctement, il articule, s’inclinant sur la main nue qu’elle lui a
donnée :
— Madame, je vous présente mes hommages.
— Pourquoi ? « madame… » Nous sommes toujours cousins,
que je sache !
— C’est vrai… Vous avez raison… Bonjour, Nicole.
— A la bonne heure, ainsi.
 Mais toute conversation est interrompue car le maître d’hôtel
annonce que le dîner est servi.
 VII

Le repas les a séparés. Ils ont rempli, envers leurs voisins

respectifs, les menus devoirs imposés par la politesse. Mais ils se
sont observés avec une attention aiguë et discrète.
Lui, a été très courtois pour la chanoinesse qui l’accaparait sans
merci. Elle, Nicole, a causé tout le temps du repas avec Francis
Hawford dont le masque violent avait une expression d’admiration
avide quand il arrêtait sur elle des yeux de conquérant.
René n’a pu entendre que des bribes de leur conversation ; mais
il a vu que Nicole était amusée, intéressée par l’exotisme des idées
de Hawford ; que le peintre se laissait envoûter par la grâce
française.
Et — complexité de l’âme ! — cette constatation lui a été plutôt
désagréable, si détaché qu’il fût — ou crût être — de Mme de
Miolan. Alors, résolu à oublier sa présence, il s’est pris à regarder
autour de lui. Il a trouvé apaisante la vue de Mademoiselle, avec son
air d’humble vierge. Il a aperçu Guillemette, déjà tentatrice, les
lèvres savoureuses, ses yeux de sombres violettes où la jeunesse
rit, étincelant d’inconscientes promesses.
En elle, y aurait-il une future Nicole ?
Cette pensée effleure l’esprit de René et le révolte aussitôt
comme une sorte de profanation. Pourquoi douter de cette enfant
parce qu’elle a reçu, elle aussi, le don redoutable de la séduction ?
 Évidemment, les femmes telles que la chanoinesse ne
connaissent ni ne suscitent pareils dangers. Et, sagement, pour
rétablir l’équilibre serein de sa pensée, René se remet à causer avec
elle qui, d’ailleurs, a l’esprit fertile en boutades originales.
M. d’Harbourg lui donne la réplique avec une courtoisie
cérémonieuse. Sa femme est prodigue d’aimables sourires et de
silences. La petite de Coriolis soupire, en son for intérieur, de n’être
pas placée auprès de son époux et trouve sans attrait les madrigaux
longs et surannés de M. de Harbourg, charmé par sa jolie tête de
pastel blond.
Et Mme Seyntis est la parfaite maîtresse de maison qui s’efface
devant ses hôtes et trouve toujours le mot à dire pour garder à la
conversation l’allure très correcte qu’elle juge indispensable.
Le dîner fini, c’est l’exode vers la terrasse et même le jardin où la
nuit est tiède. Dans les allées que le clair de lune sable d’argent, les
hommes fument ; et la petite flamme des cigares pique l’obscurité de
courtes lueurs.
Les personnes d’âge se sont groupées sur la terrasse et devisent
paisiblement. La petite de Coriolis a disparu, glissée au bras de son
mari, dans une allée bien sombre. Et Guillemette retenue par la
chanoinesse piétinerait volontiers d’impatience.
Nicole, elle, après avoir un instant causé avec sa mère et Mme
Seyntis, a descendu les marches de la terrasse. Elle s’assied dans
l’ombre et demeure immobile. Les paupières à demi closes, les
mains abandonnées sur ses genoux, elle songe. Que cherchent
donc dans la nuit ses yeux qui rêvent ?
Un promeneur solitaire passe devant elle sans l’apercevoir. Son
pas est lent et distrait. Lui aussi songe. Elle l’a entendu. Son beau
visage prend une bizarre expression et elle appelle :
— René ?… C’est vous, n’est-ce pas ?… Venez donc un peu… Il
fait bon ici…
Malgré la nuit, elle a vu qu’il tressaillait.
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