Data can help uncover problems in your courses that are otherwise unnoticed.
About DataLab
DataLab is the world’s largest bank of educational technology data — detailed data about how people learn and how effective learning software can be designed and deployed. This data bank addresses the widely recognized problem that education research has not produced results that unquestionably support robust student learning.
DataLab, an evolution of LearnLab's DataShop, meets instructors where they are with the data that they have. It shows them how to identify and correct issues in their instruction to improve learning outcomes.
DataLab offers tools to collect, analyze and securely store data from both offline and online instruction. These efforts help educators, researchers, course designers and partners to better assess performance, design courses, test new ideas and incorporate insights to improve student learning outcomes.
What is in DataLab's repository?
For decades, CMU learning scientists have been performing research into student interactions with learning software, reflecting learners' activities. In 2005, they began to collect this data in DataShop, the foundation for DataLab. This wealth of data is now being shared more broadly.
With the launch of DataLab, we are expanding the repository by making contributing to it and using it more accessible. We’re building tools, for example, that will make it easy for instructors and course designers — at any level — to upload data and run analysis for feedback.
We are also welcoming partners who want to contribute data to the repository or other resources. If you are an educator, researcher or technology-company executive spearheading efforts to develop standards and promote best practices in online education, let's have a conversation.
DataLab, built on the foundation of DataShop, is expanding the world's largest bank of educational technology data by making data collection and analysis tools more accessible to instructors.
How is DataLab supported?
DataLab is part of The Simon Initiative. Named to honor the work of the late Nobel Laureate and CMU Professor Herbert A. Simon, The Simon Initiative was created to accelerate the use of learning science and technology to improve student learning.
The Simon Initiative has many ways its supporters can contribute to its cause. Gifts of any size are welcome, and opportunities exist to endow a professorship, fund graduate fellowships in the learning sciences, fund continuing operations, name first-rate facilities, or simply give what you can to inspire faculty and students (indicate "DataLab" in the comment section). To talk more about the options, please contact us.
CMU's history in the learning sciences began in the 1950s, when Nobel Laureate and CMU Professor Herbert A. Simon became one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence. His subsequent pursuit of the nature of intelligence helped lay the foundation of cognitive science. LEARN MORE.