International Journal of Advances in Science Engineering and Technology, ISSN(p): 2321 –8991, ISSN(e): 2321 –9009

Vol-6, Iss-1, Spl. Issue-1 Feb.-2018, http://iraj.in

ROLE OF BIG DATA IN EDUCATION SECTOR: A REVIEW
1
ARCHANA RAO P N, 2KISHORE BAGLODI
1,2
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Srinivas School of Engineering, Mukka, India
E-mail: 1pn.archana@gmail.com, 2baglodi@gmail.com

Abstract - “The goal is turn data into information and information into insight” says Carly Fiorina former executive,
president and chair of Hewlett Packard Co. The emergence of Big Data and its constituent tools and technologies have found
profound relevance and are the prime force of success in any business sector. The adaption and operations of Big Data
technologies in the educational sector is still at a slower pace in comparison to others. The paper aims to highlight the
importance of applying Big Data technologies to various aspects of the education sector and primarily focuses on three
specific target users namely students, teachers and the organization as a whole.

Keywords - Big Data, Education Sector, Student, Teacher, Predictive Analysis, Sentiment Analysis.

I. INTRODUCTION II. KEY BUSINESS CHALLENGES

The innovation in technology combined with variety A. Student Acquisition

of data techniques have now provided the mechanism
to deal with wide spectrum of issues that appear
during the process of data collection and also during
working with large volume, variety and velocity of
data [1].The primary idea behind Big Data is the
application of information tools to pave way for data
analysis and extract useful information for better
estimation, planning and judgment in any business
process [2]. Globalization has not only paved way for
competition in world economics but has also driven
educational reforms. Public expectations for
accountability and transparency have immensely
grown in every sector and education is no longer an
exception. Even though the education industry is
continuously spawning large amounts of data, the
application of Big Data analytics is yet to gain
momentum in comparison to sectors like Banking and
Securities, Communication, Media and Services and
so on [3][5]. There certainly is a thriving enthusiasm
in the education community to make use of Big Data
analytics to derive value which can be applied for the
holistic betterment of the community [4].
Big Data analytics can resolve all the issues of the
education sector. Georgia State University for
example adopted new data analytic tools to deliver
solutions to the long pending problem of student
retention [6]. Various groups in the education sector
look at the information collected in accordance to
their own view and objective. Students, teachers and
the educational institution itself can benefit by
deriving values from the large volumes of data sets
available. The remainder of the paper is organized as
follows. Section II focuses on the key business
challenges of the education sector. In section III, the
paper sheds light on some application examples of
Big Data in the education sector. The concluding
remarks are given in section IV.
Tools that are used for communication with target
crowd have changed from traditional media to a new
concept called social media. Universities and colleges
have started clinging to social media for the overall
marketing model. Acquiring the most talented
students is not just mere enlisting. Eventual students
do extensive on-line research about the prospective
institution before getting enrolled [8]. They
understand and discuss student sentiments of the
institution through discussion forums and thereby
connect with others of similar interest before actually
making any physical contact with the institution.
Harvard, The University of California and others are
using social media as an advertising tool. There are
few prominent factors that drive students to
educational institution namely personal factors,
academic quality, facility, campus, socialization,
financial aid and policies. Research done at the
University of New Hampshire shows 96% students
use Facebook, 84% use YouTube, 20% use blogs and
14% use Twitter. Thorough sentiment analysis of the
student’s sentiments helps wonders in the student
enrolment process. Big Data solutions therefore serve
as insight analysis podium [7].
B. Student Conduct
Conduct of a student is a measure of how well they
perform academically. An early assessment of the
student’s overall campus life which includes task,
social habits, eating and sleeping habits, effectiveness
of the tutor and so on play a very vital role towards a
student’s conduct. Big Data solutions enable better
analysis of student’s sentiments. Installation of
sensors in the college premises provide an insight of
student’s academic life by tracking the amount of
time they spend in classrooms, library, hostel,
cafeteria and so on. IoT technology clubbed with
analysis of large data sets provides the desired result
[8].

Role of Big Data in Education Sector: A Review

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 International Journal of Advances in Science Engineering and Technology, ISSN(p): 2321 –8991, ISSN(e): 2321 –9009
Vol-6, Iss-1, Spl. Issue-1 Feb.-2018, http://iraj.in
A student’s profile, archival conduct and
demographic information provide precise and
dependable prognosis. Big Data technologies
progressively pave the way for the collection, storage
and processing of massive amount of data traversing
reasonable amount of time encompassing a large
variety of data types and samples [4]. These facets
thus make them extensively and ideally suitable to
mine and measure varying student characteristics
engaged in the learning process. Big Data analytics
can used to identify the at risk students and increase
the student retention rate.
C. Research Optimization
Research practices play an important role in affirming
the credibility of any educational institution. The
quality of the research work brings grants from
government and others sectors thus bringing the
institution to limelight. For the enablement of good
quality research projects the interested and intuitive
faculties, students and the available resources should
be brought under a single umbrella. Big Data tools
and applications make use of intellectual data that
aids research practices and management on both
personal and collaborative grounds [10]. Academic
social networks such as Academia and ResearchGate
provide a platform for the reasoning of research
work. Collaborative cloud based Big Data analytics
provide insights thereby allowing researchers across
the globe to find likeminded people who could
contribute to the projects. The success or failure of a
research work can be determined by using predictive
analysis. If early results are unsatisfactory the
research can be brought to conclusion and if the
results look promising then an estimation of the
research pace and resources can be thought about.
Big Data solutions incur much lower cost for the
storage and processing of magnitudes of research data
thereby serving as a storage and analytical platform.
Figure I. Education Big Data Open Service Model
Role of Big Data in Education Sector: A Review
2
D. Improving Teaching Efficiency
The role of teachers has drastically changed with the
emergence of Big Data enhanced education.
Enormous amount of educational data generated
requires teachers to be more equipped and qualified
to work on the analysis process. Teachers are
required to master cutting edge technologies and keep
pace with new tools and technologies. Instantaneous
feedback helps to determine the student’s learning
curve, detect student requirements, foresee future
performances and enables teachers to make effective
changes in the teaching methodologies [12]. Teachers
must be quick enough to work on the required entity
from the explosive student dataset. The course
material level and its effectiveness can be judged by
student’s sentiments about a particular teacher. This
can help the teacher and the organization take
corrective actions. Appreciation and rewards can be
conferred to those teachers about whom students
exhibit positive sentiments [11].
III. SOME APPLICATION EXAMPLES
[12] Degree Compass matches students with courses
that best suits their capability. The project was
inspired by the recommendation systems developed
by Netflix, Amazon and Pandora. Degree Compass
uses predictive analytics techniques established on
grade and enrolment data and ranks courses in
accordance to factors that determine how helpful a
particular course might be to the student to advance
through the degree program. Tools such as Tableau,
Quibble, Qlike and the others can analyze educational
data. [13] The Electro Encephalography (EEG)
sensors measure brain’s electric activity and
determine the attention level. EEGs which are
available at much affordable prices can be used to
determine the focus level of students of a particular
cohort during lectures. The data obtained from these
sensors can be fed to Big Data systems for predictive
analysis.
 International Journal of Advances in Science Engineering and Technology, ISSN(p): 2321 –8991, ISSN(e): 2321 –9009
Vol-6, Iss-1, Spl. Issue-1 Feb.-2018, http://iraj.in
[2] Conceptualize a framework that analyses and
applies the learning platform and recording data. The
learning service platform is added with various
learning contents, search paths, recording and
feedback data and thus gathers data about individual
behavior. The obtained data can be sent for future
analysis. [14] Proposes an Education Big Data Open
Service model as shown in Figure I. The platform
was tried at the Central China Norma University and
offers assistance to the keys aspects of education
sector namely teachers and students. The model
effectively provides solution to the data acquisition
problem for staffs and researchers.
Decision time is the most critical aspect of education
data which is real time in nature such as daily course
attendance, online learning activity, campus behavior
and so on. Organizations are keener on obtaining real
time data in order to make a more enhanced analysis
and derive value from it. Visualization, exploratory,
descriptive and predictive analysis with statistics,
machine learning, computational linguistics and other
techniques aptly enables mining of enormous amount
of data sets to arrive at solutions and to further
enhance the education sector.
CONCLUSION
The paper depicts the importance of applications of
Big Data mining technologies to mine large
educational data sets. Various scenarios pertaining to
different target users namely students, teachers and
educational institutions have been taken into account.
Though Big Data has unfolded its wings in various
domains in an unprecedented manner, educational
institutions are yet to utilize it to the maximum
possible extent. Lack of computational capacities,
tools and human resources can be attributed to this.
Confidentiality and privacy of student data and the
need for greater security could also contribute
towards the slow pace of education sector in utilizing
Big Data technologies. Every aspect of the education
sector can be harnessed with suitable data mining
technologies to predict and understand the relevant
sentiments.

Role of Big Data in Education Sector: A Review
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