What is student data and how to collect them?

Rank the challenges faced by an online tutor based on its importance, collecting student data will be definitely on the top.

Student data is something that every institute, academy, and independent tutor needs to have to help them track their students. 

This data should be stored and easily accessible at any stage of the course.

Now, this becomes a little challenging when you are storing the data manually. 

Luckily, in this modern era, there are several tools available to tackle the problem of collecting, storing, and managing student data.

In this blog, we will shed more light on the ways to achieve this. But first let us begin with a very basic question about student data.

What is Student Data?

Student data is the information about students collected from various sources during the different stages of the course. It is a mixture of multiple information about students related to academics, tests, and demographics.

If you are managing student data, the following four parameters have to be taken care of without fail – 

• Availability: The data should be available instantly whenever required
• Complete: The data should have the entire details about the student
• Relevant: The collected data should be relevant to your needs and expectations
• Secured: The data should be stored in a secured location

Why is collecting student data important?

Now that you know what student data is, it is also critical that you know the reason behind why you collect them. According to a survey conducted by Data Quality Campaign, student data have proven to be extremely helpful to guide students in their course journey.

Here are the top three reasons why student data is important:

1. Notifying the parents

Parents need to know how well their kids are performing in the online class. Collecting information about the students and generating reports about their performance can help the parents to get a better idea about the progress of their children and take necessary steps for improvement.

2. Student monitoring

Students need to finish their course within the stipulated time. To help them achieve this, tutors need to be aware of their progress. Having a record of student data and their performance indicators highlights their progress so that the tutors can help them navigate towards the correct path for early course completion.

3. Customized courses

Collecting student data can help course creators decide what type of courses are suitable for their students. Using this data, instructors can even create personalized courses that are tailored based on students’ performance and skills.

Ways to Collect Student Data

Here are some of the different ways to collect student data:

Connect with parents

In an online education model, it is difficult for you to single-handedly collect student data. To make things easier, connect with the parents of the students and get the information that you couldn’t capture otherwise. Create a Google Form to ask all relevant questions and share it with the parents to collect the responses.

Use Gamification

Gamifying your data collection process is probably the most resourceful way of data collection. Advanced LMS platforms like Learnyst offer gamification features and you can get started with it effortlessly. For example, you can employ a predefined strategic assessment with a hint of gamification in it. But make sure that the students do not crack the game pattern which might result in loss of accurate data.

Create groups

Creating groups with like-minded students can be beneficial for your data collection process. Organize regular calls in these groups and interact with the students using different strategic tools that can help assess the skill set of each student. 

Observe and record

While students are doing their assignments, observe their behavior and attitude. Record them diligently. You will be able to capture various important personality traits of the student. This is because every student reacts uniquely to a particular situation. You can even note how a student responds when a question is asked and how well he/she has interpreted the course taught so far. All this data can help you take course corrective measures.

Anecdotal Capture

This is another way of capturing the student data where you write a brief summary of a particular student and make an analysis based on the write-up. Write down different facts about a student and analyze them according to predefined guidelines. Then categorize and rank them based on your analysis. This might help you have clear data on hand about every student.

Implement a Student Information System (SIS)

An SIS is a tool that can store complete information about a student and helps you track and analyze this information in the same platform. Modern LMS providers like Learnyst also serve as an effective SIS, thereby eliminating the need for separate software. On that note, here are some of the top features of a typical SIS –

• The databases of most modern SIS are on cloud which makes the information accessible from anywhere just logging into your account.
• An SIS houses the technology to capture student behavior during the class through an in-built analytics engine and provide the results in a quantitative format.
• The SIS is responsible for holding student information right from the admission stage all the way to the course completion stage.
• An SIS helps you to manage and record student attendance. This is crucial information and helps to make decisions regarding the student’s progress. 

The above-mentioned are some of the popular ways by which you can capture student data and use them to make important decisions about your course. In every method, it is always better to involve the parents, since they are the ones who stay closest to the students and might know things that you can never capture. It is also essential to involve them because they need to know how their pupils are progressing in the course.

How Learnyst can help?

Learnyst comes with an in-built student management system that can track and store student data such as attendance, exam performance, milestones, behavior, and so on. 

One of the core features of Learnyst is its  Learning Analytics Report. This report generated by Learnyst can be used to track student progress throughout the course. If you are an existing Learnyst user, here are the steps to access this report:

1.  Click on Reports on your Dashboard

2.  Then head towards Learning Analytics. You will see a list of all your courses in this section. Click on the course for which you want to check student progress.

3.  Upon selecting the course, you will see the whole data about the registered students and their completion status.

Further Reading: Tracking Attendance in Online Courses

What’s Next?

Sign up with Learnyst today to track and manage your student data seamlessly.