Implementing Learning Analytics to Foster a STEM Learning Ecosystem at the City-Level: Emerging Research and Design Challenges

To address the goal of increasing and broadening participation of youth in STEM fields, a learning ecosystem approach is a promising strategy. Learning analytics can play an important role in such efforts which aim to build learning supports across the diverse spaces in which learning and development occurs, including informal, formal, and online contexts. This paper introduces a city-level learning analytics implementation effort in a developing STEM ecosystem in one mid-sized city. We describe aspects of our design and research approach and challenges that emerge by taking a learning ecosystem perspective of learning and development.