This talk looks at the Galway-Mayo VLE as part of the REAL analytics project. There are approximately 26 million student interaction events with the VLE annually but what does this mean?

The Gasta provides a high-level overview of how our VLE is being used across our programmes, what level of interaction is typical for a student and what the high-level drivers of interaction and engagement are. We find that there are several different user types but that activity highly concentrated within a small number of courses. 21% of student activity is concentrated in the top 1% of courses and just 8% of courses drive over half of activity on the VLE. What drives this and what features support it?

The aim is to provide a clear, accessible snapshot of our VLE usage and consider how we might best support educators developing their own pedagogy. The Gasta acknowledges the limits of learning analytics and aggregated activity indicators, emphasising responsible interpretation and the importance of pairing data with local context.

The Gasta finishes by considering how a university’s strategic vision for its VLE can impact pedagogy and what educators might need from the University to drive improved pedagogy, student engagement and retention.