Assignment 11

Big Data Analytics – For Better Educational Outcomes

Abstract

Big Data provides possible outcomes to the learning centers to use and gain on their relevant
information technology resources for the purpose of enabling students to improve their educational
quality and guide and motivate the students from taking better results and performing higher rates
of completion when they pursue higher studies and establishing student course of action and
outcomes of their results. This paper explains on the important factors that focus the adoption and
measuring the use of big data and analytics in relevant educational institutions defined as
institutions of higher learning. The study of which qualifies the use of big data and analytics has
been conducted and discussed through researching the findings and reviewing the sources of
evidence of learning that together have the potential to generate the unrecorded data and outlines
the assessments and affections of the data structures that collected incidental to learning activity.
Emerging the sources of evidence of learning represents the implications relates the relationship
between assessment and instructionconceptually and raises the number of methodology
questions.Our research aims to design the practices of using an educational data science approach
to support the culture and developing on decision making.
Keywords: Big Data, Analytics, Higher Education, assessments, research methods, student
evaluation of teaching, teaching practice.

Introduction
Information technology is defined as leading to the improvements of innovating today’s
technology innovations that benefit society. Technological advancements in digital technologies
raised number of people connecting and using the digital devices worldwide. Big Data Analytics
is build to contribute the usage amount of data in their ecosystems in institutions of higher of
learning.Particularly in Africa, pool of data overcomes the problems of statistical tragedy that
many developing countries made, and irrelevant data crises. Big Data refers to collection of data
sets that are formed the significant challenges of the traditional learning tools availability within a
tolerable amount of time. Big Data processes mass volume of data which are fixed with the
technologies that comparing the speeds between future and before and the features of Big Data
enables the decision making practices and possibilities of insight. The decisions which are
affecting environment in institutions of higher educationdeals with these rapid changes represent
the complexity of data sources but some sources are not available to measure timely choices. These
data explainthe understandings of the nature that are engaged in higher education governance
(Clarke, Nelson &Stoodley, 2013) .These data ensure that institutions are able to serve the potential
benefits in the societies of the remain pertinent.
Moreover, these global changes are seeking and establishing the significant impact from new
technologiesin the institutions of higher education to be developed on academic careers as they are
effectively respond to their roles of research and teaching to become more flexible and important
on these technologies (Economist Report, 2008). Over the last decades, in new technologies there
are more improvements thatan association of digital revaluation revised such as reliability of
accessing computing devices, designing a flexible with a standard class room and enrolling with
massive open online courses is redesigning the mode and accessibility of course learning
outcomes. In addition, many institutions are practicing and surfacing new class formats and
technologies that enhancing student needs to reduce operational costs.
We used Splunk (Big Data) as a platform for supporting the teaching tools such as visualization
and analysis. The motivation for this research is toassist the teachers to evaluate themselves and
contributing the teaching practices to improve.

The historical context of big data analytics for better educational outcomes

The ability to track and store student’s learning activities as big data indexes inside online
conditions will be the opportunity that given by technology advancement. Storing huge quantities
of data over an all-encompassing period and down to specific transactions (Picciano, 2012). Users
can take big data from various sources to incorporate learning management systems (e.g.,
Blackboard), open source stages (e.g., Moodle), open social stages (e.g., LinkedIn), and diverse
web apparatuses such Meerkat-Ed and Snapp. Like basic leadership’s decisions driven by data,
analytics alludes to the scientific procedure that looks at data to figure ends and to show ways to
make decisions (Picciano, 2012). As per (Brown, 2012), the procedure of systematically gathering
and breaking down large data sets from online hotspots to improve learning processes is called
learning analytics (LA). LA is a rising field in education. Specialists in online learning in American
advanced education anticipate that inside the following couple of years learning analytics will be
generally utilized in online education to recognize students' for example of practices and to
students’ learning and degrees of consistency.

The closely related concepts are the educational data mining, learning analytics, and academic
analytics (Marie Bienkowski, 2012). Educational data mining centers on creating and actualizing
techniques with an objective of advancing revelations from data in educational settings. It looks at
examples in a large data set related to students’ activities. The methods might be used to shape a
superior comprehension of the educational settings and students. (Jui-Long Hung,
2012)Characterized data mining as data analysis methods which when connected concentrate
concealed knowledge comprising of tasks consisting of pattern disclosure as well as predictive
modeling. Romero and Ventura (S.Ventura, 2007)gave a meaning of educational data mining that
uses data mining algorithms with the target of fathoming educational issues. Academic analytics
alludes to a utilization of the standards and tools of business intelligence to academia with the
objective of enhancing educational institutions’ decision-making and performance (John P, 2007).
Academic analytics combines “large data sets, factual methods, and prescient
demonstrating.Learning analytics utilizes prescient models that allow actionable data. It is a multi-
disciplinary methodology dependent on, technology-learning enhancement, visualization,
educational data mining, anddata processing (MarenScheffel, 2014). The reason of LA is to tailor
educational chances to the individual learner’s need and capacity through activities for example,
interceding with understudies in danger or giving input and instructional substance. On the other
hand, educational data mining endeavors to create precise and automated reactions to students.
While LA centers around the utilization of known techniques and models to address issues
influencing understudy learning and the authoritative learningsystem, educational datamining
centers around the improvement of new computational data analysis methods (Marie Bienkowski,
2012).

There has been some criticism that advanced education administrators and the financial
surrounding ofeducation leadthe procedure of big data mining (Clow, 2013); in any case,
observational investigations showed that LA can be helpful for enhancing education. LA expands
consciousness of students and teachers in their present circumstances that can enable them to settle
on valuable choices and all the more adequately play out their tasks (MarenScheffel, 2014). One
of the main principle uses of learning analytics is following and anticipating students' performance
and recognizing potential dangerous issues and understudies in risk (Johnson, 2011). A few
colleges have officially utilized LA in different courses to enhance learning. For instance, Purdue
University utilized prescient modeling based on data gathered from the course management system
to identify understudies at risk and provide intercession. The University of Alabama enhanced
understudy maintenance by shaping a prescient model for students at risk based on the big data set
of learners’ socioeconomics. For another situation, Northern Arizona University associated
resource use, risk level, and understudies' accomplishment by forming a predicting model to
identify which students would benefit from which resource (John Campbell, 2007). These are a
few instances of pioneer advanced education establishments that connected LA.

In spite of the fact that there have been studies related to utilizing LA in advanced education
institutions within the most recent quite a long while, LA is still adeveloping field of education.
Advanced education stakeholders including instructors, administrators, leaders, and course
developers need to become familiar with LA techniques and application in advanced education
(MarenScheffel, 2014). The issue is few studies have synthesized the Online Learning - Volume
20 Issue 2 - June 2016recently ledresearches or provided a consolidatedoverview of issues
concerning the utilization of LA in advanced education. To address this literature gap and upgrade
use of LA in higher education, this study conducted a literature review. It provides an overview of
techniques, advantages, and difficulties of using LA in advanced education institutions for
administrators, teachers, and course designers who are not master in LA and need to build up
anessential understanding about LA. As the utilization of LA is ending up progressively well-
known and earnest in advanced education, giving such an overview is critical to enhancing higher
education stakeholders’ understanding about LA.

Analysis of the literature gave a far reaching outline of the analytical learning techniques,
advantages, and difficulties with respect to the utilization of big data in education. Examination of
these perspectivesdemonstrated positive commitments. Be that as it may, the literature review also
revealed negative considerations regarding in regards to the utilization of learning analytics. Thus,
a closer examination of these angles can uncover different bits of knowledge.
This research uncovered that learning analytics is an interdisciplinary field or Jackdaw fieldrequest
as recommended by (Clow, 2013). Accordingly, learning analytics chooses and utilizes methods
and analysis methods from other disciplines as dependent on to achieve the objective of enhancing
education. LA offers interventions depend on the predicted models grounded in the huge datasets
in educational institutions. Learning analytics pursues a large scale procedure of data collection,
data analysis, prediction model development, intervention, and refinement of the predicted model
(John Campbell, 2007); (Clow, 2013). There is a progressive system structure in which the stream
of analytical information follows from understudies to the stakeholders. This research reveals that
the procedure must incorporate stakeholders to offer input and criticism. Utilization of a
comprehensive technique will prompt an upgraded involvement for the students. Learning
analytics utilizes different methodologiesincluding visual data analysis procedures,semantic,
social network analysis, and educational data mining to analyze the data (Marie Bienkowski,
2012). Specifically, this study portrayed the two broadly utilized methodologies of data
visualization and education data mining technique of Baker, which incorporates forecast,
bunching, relationship mining, disclosure with models, and partition of information for human
judgment. Learning analytics takes into accountfor stakeholders— for example, teachers and
students—to get experiences about the instructive setting. Further, researchers must approve and
report look into results and in addition advance prescribed procedures for stakeholder.

From utilizing these different techniques, big data in education shows numerous advantages in the
educational environment. Review of the literature revealed how data analytics can yield
advantages to education by helping institutions and educators to enhance course contributions. LA
can likewise help build up subject curriculums that more nearly line up with the requirements of
understudies as well as the necessities of industry. Further, analytics can provide in regards to
student outcomes in the educational process as well as the effectiveness of instructors within the
classroom. Moreover, analytics can provide valuable information to the research community to
help identify and resolve gaps among academia and distinctive industries. In spite of the fact that
LA seems to show a far reaching portrayal of advantages within education, one must recall that
the utilization of learning analytics is still in the beginning periods ofdevelopment. . Subsequently,
additional advantages may develop as the utilization of analytics evolves and technology improves.
Further, as people acquire greater skills in the field of analytics, increasingly modern
employmentsof big data may also emerge to provide more valuableexperiences in educational
environments.

While learning analytics exhibits advantages to teachers and understudies through enhanced
lectures and student learning result a close review of the ethical, lawful, and riskconcerns show
the complexities of offsetting difficulties with educational concerns. In spite of the fact current
technological abilities permit the acquisition, storage, and access of data, users must remain current
on technology advancement that may give upgrades to these systems and how institutions can
balance stakeholder necessity with ethical considerations. To achieve this, individuals who work
with data must possess the imperative training in learning analytics to understand how to utilize
the data productively to important outcomes. Further,users should likewise understand the
different ethical and legitimate perspectives as well as the inherent risks of data usage. To ensure
security and keep up ethical standards, guidelines should inform appropriate data use. Further,
responsibility at all dimensions of data use will require aproper system of checks and balances.
Additionally, security should be very much actualized and kept up to guarantee security
assurances. In synopsis, systems must provide proper straightforwardness, data controls by
students, data security, and responsibility safeguards.

Methodology

Many organizationsas of now utilizing using data to settle on better choices about their strategic
andoperational directions. Utilizing data to settle on choices isn't new; business organizations have
beenstoring and analyzing large volumes of data since the approach of data warehouse systems in
themid-1990s. Notwithstanding, the nature of data accessible to most organizations is changing,
and theprogressions carrywith them unpredictability in dealing with the volumes and analysis of
these data. Basu(2013) observed that most businesses today keep running on organized data
(numbers and categories).Be that as it may, this does not reflect the multifaceted on the nature of
accessible corporate data and undiscovered shrouded business value. According to IBM, 80% of
the data organizations presentlygenerated are unstructured, and they arrive in a variety of formats
such as text, video, audio, diagrams, images and blends of any at least two configurations.

Recent developments in database technologies made it conceivable to gather and maintain large
and complex measures of data in numerous structures and from multiple sources. Furthermore,
there areinstruments accessible that can transform this unpredictable information into meaningful
patterns and value, aphenomenon referred to as Big Data. Big Data portrays data that is general
sense too big and moves too fast, thus exceeding theprocessing capacity of conventional database
systems (Manyikaet al, 2011). It additionally covers innovative procedures and technologies to
capture, store, distribute, manage and analyses larger sizeddata sets with differing structures.

With new concepts, studies develop. Some critics challenged that the idea of Big in the termitself
is misleading and that it does not reflect only data size but complexity nature. Big Data has little
to do with the data itself, as the analysis of huge quantitiesof data is not new, but rather Big Data
alludes to new suit of technologies that can procedure mass volumes of data of differentsorts at
quicker speeds than any time in recent memory. Thisconceptualization ofBig Data was echoed by
Forrester defining Big Data as “technologies and procedures that makecapturing an incentive from
data at an extraordinary scale economical. “The term economical proposes that ifthe expenses of
separating, processing and influencing utilization of data exceed the advantages to be
collected,then it is not worth indulging in the process. Generally, Big Data has come to be
identified by anumber of fundamental characteristics. Key among them are:
• Volume—large amount of information is often challenging to store, process, and transfer,
analyse and present.
• Velocity—relating to increasing rate at which information flows within an organization—(eg,
organisations dealing with financial information have ability to deal with this).
• Veracity refers to the biases, noise and abnormality in data. It also looks at how data that is
being stored, and meaningfully mined to the problem being analyzed. Veracity also covers
questions of trust and uncertainty.
• Variety—referring to data in diverse format both structured and unstructured.
• Verification—refers to data verification and security.
• Value—most importantly, has the data been utilised to generate value of the insights, benefits
and business processes, etc. within an organisation?

The value of Big data in Higher Education

Big Data Analysis in Education (Dashboard)

In terms of education, big data also play a very important role as it has a potential to impact
the education in nowadays. This is due to the increasing of online platform and courses launching
by the university and colleges in nowadays. According to Massive Open Online Course (MOOC),
which is an online courses that aimed to have unlimited students and open the access through the
web, the number of announced MOOCs has increase to 9400 from 6850 in year 2018. (Figure 1)
Other than that, the usage of online communities such as online discussion, online message, and
online forums also shows a huge increment by the years. All these online activities and the
activities through learning management systems would create a huge quantity of data, which are
mandatory in developing the learning environment and also improve the overall learning
experience.

Figure 1

Big data analysis is defined as a process of examining a huge quantity of data set to identify
the hidden pattern and also other necessary information. The information generated by the big data
analysis will then be used by the users in making important decisions. According to the authors
of ‘A review of Big Data Analytics in Sector of higher education’, a good big data analytic model
should include two stages, which are strategic question and data analysis and prediction. The first
stage, strategic question refers to the question around which the whole idea revolves, meanwhile
the second stages is regarding the process of interpreting the pattern of the data and apply
prediction over the same insight and action. This analytical process required the user to first
understanding the pattern and then taking the necessary actions if it is required. Next, we will
discuss about the usage of big data and also big data analysis in terms of education.

Analytics in education is essential for the data-driven decision making process, as it process
the gathered data and turned it into useful information, which is very helpful for the user in making
decision. In education, analytics allow both the students and also the institute to make a good data-
driven decision. The analytical process can help to enhance the sustainability of the system as it
can improve the existing system. Besides of that, the analytical also can bring an innovation in
terms of disruptive by create a new system, which is differ from the existing system. Furthermore,
the analytics in education can be categories into two different types, which are learning analytics
and academic analytics. The learning analytics is aiming to help the learner to be success by assists
the learner in making decision that are necessary in order to achieve some specific learning
outcomes. This learning analytics can use to identify the pattern in the behavior of the students and
then the lecturer can use this input to acknowledge the students that are at risk and then assists the
institute to take the necessary precautions. Meanwhile, the academic analytics is assist in making
decision regarding the operation of the management and institutional. The academic analytics
involve the information, culture, technology, management that manage the academic enterprise
and it relate to the decision in terms of services provided by the campus, such as finance,
administration, exam unit and others. The purpose of the academic analytics is to enhance the
effectiveness in the organizational level.

Campbell and Oblinger (2007) have introduced the phases that involve for the analytics
can be divided into Capture, Report, Predict, Act and Refine. For the acquisition and extraction of
data, real time data can be collected from the social network websites, such as Twitter, Personal
Blog, Facebook and others, Course Management Systems (CMS), Learning Management System
(LMS) and the physical data. The data extracted from all these sources would be in a huge amount
and of peta bytes order, which will increase the difficulty in identifying the data of interest from
all these data. Some filter can be used to extract the important information by filter out some
unused data and remain only the useful information that we are interested with. The information
will only be useful when it is able to interpret at the last stage of data analysis, hence it is important
to format the collected information into the format which is ready to use for analysis. Next, for the
integration and analysis stages, in order to have an effective outcome and to retrieve the appropriate
data quickly, the process of locating, identifying and understanding and citing a data must be
computer automated. With the usage of computers, it can combine large sets of data together and
retrieve important things from patterns that humans might not be able to see. Integrating data this
way also provides a way to avoid loss of data through redundancy-proofing. Combining databases
and searching them electronically eliminates other human-based issues like data-mining, pattern
recognition, identifying missing data, and so on. The last stage of big data analysis is the
interpretation of the information. The Big Data would be useless if the decision maker or user is
unable to interpret the information properly. The interpretation process including examination of
all assumption made and also retraces the analysis done before. This process will be very complex
since it involved big data; therefore, it is necessary for the user to include the supplementary
information to support the result.

Big data analysis would provide a lot of benefits to both the educational institutes and the
students. Embracing to these analytics, it would lead the user to become more intentional and also
more intelligent with data and evidence. This is because, by using this big data analysis, the
decisions made by the user are data based decisions, which are more reliable decisions. Vatsala,
Rutuja, Sathyaraj (2017) have highlighted the main eight benefits of big data analysis. The first
benefit is in terms of student acquisition, the big data can help the institutes to identify the potential
students, which will help the institute to achieve its expectation. This can be done by including big
data to the applications, test scores and also face-to-face interview, which will improve the process
of screening of students. Besides of that, the institutes also can use the big data analysis to
understand the expectation of the students towards the services provided by the institutes by
interpreting the big data collected such as demographics and the past performance data of the
students. After that, the institutes can improve their services and attract more students to apply the
courses, which will then increase the revenues of the institutes. Other than that, the second benefit
is to improve the student retention. This is because the number of students who decided to quit
their study is keep increasing through the year, which was a loss of the revenue of the institute.
The big data analysis can assists the institute to identify those students that are probably quit study
and take the necessary action to prevent it to happen such as conduct counseling with those
students. The data about the involvement of the students in the school activities such as the
participation in the online class exercise, number of time that students log in to the campus website,
past performances and others might give the institute the signals of this student is more likely to
quit the study. Hence, with the use of the big data analytics, all this data regarding the students can
be display in a dashboard which will help the management to identify the problem of the students
and help the institute improve the student retention.

The third benefit of using big data analysis is it will improve the progress of the student.
When the lecturer is conducting analytic on the students in the class, the lecturer can observe the
performance of each student in the class and then provide a more efficient, reliable and immediate
feedback to that particular student regarding their progress. The students’ data such as past
performance, midterm score, coursework, demographic outlook and other related data could be
used by the lecturer to predict the performance of a student. When the students are regularly
updated with their progress by the lecturer and advices are giving to students, the results and
performances of the students can be improved. Next, the big data analytics also benefit the institute
as it could improve the teaching method of the lecturer. The institutes can use the analysis to
identify the patterns of the students in studying and evaluate the teaching strategies of the lecturers
in the school. The examples of the data could be used are the number of the students, the ability of
the students, behavior and students’ demographics to find the suitable lecturer to teach the subject.
Furthermore, the analysis can help to match the students to programs and employment. The big
data can help the students to decide on what is their major and utilize their college investment. The
problem of lack of transparency in the information provides by the institutes will increase the
difficulty of the students in choosing which institute to enter as different institute have different
offers and courses. Big data analysis can help by gathering all the information collected and
provide useful information to the students.

The sixth benefit is it will improve the students’ experience. A student’s performance is
not solely depends on the study of the student, it also depends on other factors such as the eating
habit, sleeping time, social habits and routine. The institute can sue big data to understand the
student behavior pattern and the institutes can know the experiences of the students towards the
campus based on the data collected. After that, the institutes can do some changes based on the
experiences of the students or the conduct counseling for the students. Besides, the analysis can be
used to develop an effective administrative system. The institute can collect the data regarding the
opinions of the students toward the system of the campus and then the company can take into
consideration of the opinions and correct the mistake if it is necessary. The last benefit of big data
analysis is to enhance the research effectiveness. The students can apply the analytic to a huge
amount of data, and thus, which will improve the quality of the research. It also can help the user
in storing and processing a large volume of research data.

Besides, there are also some challenges that will be faced during the application of big data
in the education sector. In order to enjoy the benefits of big data analytics, the user must be able
to address and overcome all these challenges. Vatsala, Rutuha and Sathyaraj(2017) have
highlighted the eight major challenges that will be faced by the institute during the application of
big data analytics. The first issue is regarding the student consent. The institute has to ensure that
students’ consents are obtained regarding the usage of their personal data as some of the students
might found uncomfortable to use their personal data for the analytical use. Next, the second
challenge of application of big data is in terms of the privacy and security. The user must avoid
using too personal information for the analytical purpose; it is advised to use only the academic
data. If the user is considering using the personal information, then the data must be handled
carefully to ensure that the privacy of the data owner is not intervened. Some necessary precaution
steps such as anti-virus software, firewall, passcode and others should be implemented to prevent
the data being stolen and misused.

Other than that, the third challenge is regarding the capability of the institute in adopting
big data analytics. This is because the result of the analytics will be affected by the quality of the
data that used for the analytics. The institute must ensure that the data is consistent and accurate
in order to generate an accurate result. Therefore, the institute must possess the necessary skills
and knowledge to collect and access the data, and the institute is advised to have a good
management system that link the data available from different departments. Besides of the
capability of the institute, the capability of the staff also is one of the challenges faced by the
institute in applying big data analytics. Since the big data has just introduced by these few year,
some of the staffs unaware about this technology and doesn’t own the necessary skills to do the
big data analytics. The institute might need to allocate huge capital to give training to their staffs
or the institute need the hire new analysts to do this analytics.

Furthermore, the sixth challenge in adopting big data analytic is absence of the common
language. This is because the absence of the common language will also affect the result of the
analytics. Hence, in order to ensure the efficient communication, the institute must ensure that
there is common language and good communication across the various platforms to avoid
misunderstanding happens during the process of analytics. The next challenge faced by the
institute in applying big data analytics is regarding the correlation versus causation. The institute
should not simply draw the conclusion on identifying any patterns without the sufficient evidences
to support the conclusion. A relationship between's two factors does not generally infer that one
of them is the reason for another. The last challenge is in terms of the claims beyond the data used
by the institute for the analytics purpose. A researcher may fake the analytics results. An example
for this issue can be University rankings. One institute can claim itself the best on the basis of
academics, while the other on the basis of infrastructure and so on.

There are some solutions that the institutes can take to solve the challenges faced by them
during the adaption of big data analytics. According to the Vatsala, Rutuja, Sathyaraj (2017), in
order to solve the problem regarding the student’s consent and privacy, the institute should make
sure that they are obtain the consents and permission of the students before using their data for the
analytics. The institute also should make sure that the data are gathered only for use of the specific
purposes, and shouldn’t be used in other unauthorized propose. This is to ensure that the institute
wouldn’t face with any legal suit regarding the infringement of misuse data, which will bring a
huge negative impact to the institute’s image and reputation. Next, the institute also can use self-
correcting analytics system to avoid any manipulation of the system. Besides of that, data security
issue also is one of the biggest problem and concerns when it deals with data. The institute should
have a good data management system which will help to solve the data security issue in big data.
The system should be able to identify the sensitive data and encrypt it into the unreadable form to
protect the data from being used for unauthorized benefits. Other than that, big data analytics may
require some specific and professional skills and knowledge from the staffs in order to carry out
the analytics effectively and accurately. Since most of the staffs don’t possess the skills to carry
out the big data analytics, the institute needs to send their staffs to training to help them acquire
the skills to do the analytics. Furthermore, the sharing and development of open-access analytics
software should be promoted across the institute in order to easier the work of big data analytics.

The factors influence Big Data Analytics in Education are cloud computing brings complex
technology close to everyone by accessing open source resources to decrease cost of big data
storage. Emergence of Big Data in higher education influences the contributions of the
expectations of the good practice of accountability of the stakeholders and the increase demand
for evidence.

Next, big data analytics and relevant technology skills enable to find appropriate
technology platforms. Information Technology build to expand education system. Virtual and
online learning systems are used for accommodate learners who need flexibility in terms of time
and distance. Big Data analytics in Higher education considered opportunities in increasing
educational system by having more students who has certain disciplines and expanding skills of
trainees and to which the industry requires attributes. Moreover, online educational systems,
educational games and simulations create opportunities gathered and collected through main
traditional assessments.

In today’s technology, it encourages the students to learn as they are reaching connections
at the center network of information in education system. Big Data are imperative in using and
administering the complex environments as providing the benefits to a society. Big Data build
possibilities that could link to the part of education by enabling latest research practices and the
undertakings of research activities. In the course of learning process, the Big Data has analyzed
and collected information on the techniques that student enable it to generate massive volume of
valuable information in field of areas such as course selection and registration and online resource
usage.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, big data and analytics have an important role in the future of the education
sector, especially in these new eras of world. The reason why we said so is because more online
courses or the distance education are launched in the year, where the online classes will have a
huge amount of data. Besides of education sector, the big data technology also will have big
impacts in the other sectors, such as medication and also business sector. The big data can be used
to analyse the patterns, trends from the data, especially in terms of human behavior and
interactions, whereby the result from the big data analytics will help the user in making important
decisions. The big data analysis will bring a lot of benefits, such as improve the teaching strategy,
improve the students’ progresses, and increase the students’ retention and others. It not only
improve the quality of learning process, teaching process, and campus services, it also help to plot
an effective and sustainable management model. However, there are some challenges that the
company has to face regarding the big data since the big data technology has just started in these
few years. These challenges arise because of the heterogeneity, incompleteness, lack of structure,
error-handling, timeliness, privacy, and security of the data. In order to cape with these challenges,
the institutes are advised to spend some money to provide the lecturers to have training or talk
regarding the big data to ensure that the staffs are possess the required skills and knowledge to
carry out big data analytics. At the same time, the institute should establish some policies to protect
the users. Other than that, some important precautions must be taken to protect the privacy and
safety of the data to prevent the data being stolen by others for unauthorized benefits.

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