Analysis of data mining techniques
applied to LMS for personalized education
1 2
W. Villegas-Ch
Universidad de Las Américas
1 Alicante, Spain
Quito, Ecuador
william.villegas@udla.edu.ec
Abstract - This article describes the models and the use of
data mining techniques applied to Learning Management
Systems (LMS) which allow institutions to offer the student a
personalized education. It considers the ways in which
the concepts of educational data mining (EDM) are applied
to the information extracted from the LMS. The data
from these systems can be evaluated to convert the
information collected into useful information to provide an
education tailored to the needs of each student. This
approach seeks to improve the effectiveness and
efficiency of education by recognizing patterns in
student performance. This article presents an analysis of
the data mining techniques that fit LMS, specifically in
terms of a case study applied to the e-learning platform
Moodle. The objective is to provide stakeholders with
guidance on the use of EDM tools.
Keywords - Data mining, e-learning, Moodle.
I. INTRODUCTION
Learning Management Systems (LMS) store large
volumes of information that are not usually fully exploited by
educational institutions. The use of such information serves
for the continuous improvement of the content and structure
of the virtual courses contained in LMS.
Under this scheme, the pedagogical model consists of
web-based virtual courses supervised by a tutor. This work is
developed with the use of online resources, activities, forums
and various shared services. The data are gathered in the LMS
and are based on the activities and didactic resources that are
offered to the students. The data obtained when evaluated
with the use of data mining leads to the possibility of
choosing the most appropriate resources and adapting it to the
characteristics and personal interests of each stakeholder in
the educational context.
In this article, we propose the analysis of the different
models and tools that allow the exchange of experiences with
regard to how students learn: Section II presents several
concepts necessary to address the problem based on previous
work; Section III details the stage of pre-processing required
for the analysis of the data using the main techniques of data
mining; Section IV performs an analysis of the results
obtained; finally section V presents the conclusions and
makes recommendations for future investigations.
II. PRELIMINARY CONCEPTS
In this article, several key concepts that help the
management and application of different models and data
mining tools are taken into account.
978-1-5090-4886-1/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
S. Luján-Mora2
University of Alicante
sergio.lujan@ua.es
A. E-learning and LMS platforms
E-learning consists of education and training through the
web [1]. This online teaching model allows the interaction of
the user with the material under consideration through the use
of various information and communication technology tools
(ICTs).
Such an approach is presented as one of the formative
strategies that can be used to solve several educational
problems [2]. These problems include the geographical
isolation of the student, the access to information, and the
need for constant improvement.
B. Data mining
Data mining is a process that uses statistical techniques,
mathematics, artificial intelligence and automatic learning to
extract and identify useful information from large databases
in order to generate knowledge [3].
Based on the concept of data mining, EDM techniques
can be used to extract knowledge from e-learning systems.
The objective of this tool is to look for behavior patterns in
terms of system use by both teachers and students [4]. This
helps to customize the virtual environment by identifying
useful knowledge, and using techniques such as prediction,
classification, clustering, fuzzy logic, etc.
III. METHOD
For the development of this work an analysis of the
different techniques and models of data mining applied to the
education was realized by taking into account the stages of
the knowledge discovery process with regard to databases.
The academic data of students on an undergraduate program
of a university in Ecuador were selected, in order to follow
up their results during 2016. The aim was to determine their
strengths and weaknesses in each activity proposed by a tutor
within a virtual course generated in the Moodle platform.
Moodle is a modular platform which makes it easy to
manage the users and courses, as well as to add content. This
tool supports all records of the activities undertaken by both
teachers and students in a database engine based on Mysql
[5].
The data obtained were included in a SQL data repository.
To this data a processing and transformation phase was
applied in order to obtain clean data. The purpose of obtaining
clean data is to be able to apply a number of different data
mining techniques, so that the results can be analyzed,
evaluated and interpreted.
In the analysis of the proposed EDM techniques, the
method that each uses to generate information that is useful
for decision making is analyzed. Based on this information,
preventive or corrective measures can be taken with regard to
the different activities proposed to create a personalized
education environment. Personalized education seeks to
strengthen students’ skills and help reduce their weaknesses
by providing resources and activities that align with their
needs.
It must be noted that the application of data mining has
several formalities that must be taken into account for the
representation of data; probabilities, rules, trees and a series
of statistical methods [6]. These aspects allow stakeholders to
save time on tasks such as finding one or a group of
individuals with similar characteristics.
A. Main approaches
There are methods, models, and data mining tools that can
be applied to data generated on LMS platforms. These
methods require that the data to be processed are in a
repository, and that the data is cleaned as mentioned above.
For this the following actions are considered: selection and
data processing.
B. Selection of data
This stage seeks to collect data from various sources,
whether external or internal, to contribute to data mining. For
this work, the data generated in the Moodle platform of the
course of Ofimatica III was used as a source, taking into
account the notes of all the activities that the students have to
carry out during a 16 week period.
The grades were downloaded from the management
module offered by the Moodle platform. This file is generated
in an .xlsx format. The file consists of 1,820 records and 58
attributes, table 1 shows a summary of the records. The data
was imported into SQL, creating a table entitled TB001OFI3
that will serve as the basis for the discovery stage relating to
patterns in the students' academic performance. (Table
TB001OFI3, only mentioned as the number of records does
not allow inclusion in this article)
Table 1 Categories taken into account for table TB001OFI3
CATEGORIES # Records
# Course Participants 34
Record by tasks 585
Records by forums 475
Partial evaluations 236
Online Questionnaires 490
Total 1820
C. Data processing
Data processing is the stage at which the data is cleaned.
This implies the elimination of null values, or ones that are
not in the proper format. The analysis performed on table
TB001OFI3 was a detailed one, taking into account the
relevance of the attributes. For this procedure we used SQL
statements that allow us to filter the unwanted data and then
delete them. This process is automated in order to continue to
feed the data repository, and by means of a stored procedure,
the data processing is automatic.
D. Prediction
A predictive model predicts the value of an attribute or
label of a dataset in the light of other attributes referred to as
descriptive attributes. From data whose label is known, a
relationship is induced between the mentioned label and
another set of attributes. These relationships serve to perform
the prediction of data whose label or value is unknown [7].
The use of this tool is key when measuring the behavior of a
course with respect to the development of activities. For
example, in the case of a proposed activity (questionnaire) for
the seventh week in the exposed case of Moodle; the
descriptive traits are that the students who review the material
of the modules of at least five weeks, approve the
questionnaire with more than 6/10. Therefore, with these
characteristics will be possible to predict based on the
individual income to the platform, the number of students that
exceed the proposed average. This tool allows the tutor of a
course to develop a method of control that distinguishes
students who are likely to fail both an activity and an
educational period program.
E. Grouping
Data mining tools that use this method allow data to form
groups that were not previously known. The elements of the
variables can be connected to each other according to
unknown links. In this way, all variables are treated at the
same level, and there is no causality hypothesis. According to
the above-mentioned characteristics, the students could be
grouped for an analysis of the similarities and differences
between them. If we apply this tool to the case mentioned in
Moodle, we find that if we group students who solve tasks
but do not take part in virtual tutorials, they have less ability
in terms of the resolution of exercises compared to the group
of students that solve the tasks and take part in the tutorials.
This tool is very useful whenever we want to identify the
different levels of learning on the part of the students, and
take corrective measures in certain cases.
The use of models of this type is also very important as
they help to provide a personalized education to the different
groups generated.
F. Relationship mining
The objective is to find out how the largest number of
variables are related to a set of data. The way to do this is to
locate the variables that are most closely related to a single
variable that is of interest, or by discovering the strongest
relationship between two variables. There are four types of
relationship mining: association rule mining, correlation
mining, sequence pattern mining, and causal data mining. In
association rule mining, the goal is to find rules 'if A then B'
so that if a set of variables is found, another variable will have
a given value. Thus, we might want to determine the sequence
of behaviors of a student who has, as a variable, his interest
in learning. In causal data mining, the objective is to find out
if one event has been the cause of another event. The
relationships found through relationship mining must satisfy and participation in the forums. The report management tool
two criteria: statistical relevance and a certain level of interest offers advantages over native Moodle reports by providing
[8]. comprehensive visualizations of the entire course [11]. This
analysis helps tutors manage data about class learning or data
G. Discovery through models generated from a past period. The benefits offered by this tool
In this model, prediction, clustering or, in some cases, can be used by all Moodle users since it is available as an
knowledge engineering (using human reasoning methods additional module of the platform.
instead of automated methods) is developed. It can be used as
a component in other analyzes such as prediction or data Another tool analyzed is Weka2. This is software that is
mining. In general, any prediction model can be used to create oriented to the extraction of knowledge in databases
rules that are used as input variables against a new resulting incorporating large volumes of information [12]. Weka's
variable. For example, learning by discovery influences how advantage over other tools is that it has been developed under
concepts or content are acquired through an active method, the GPL license. This means that it is a freely distributable
without having primary information about learning content. program; it is useful for applying to the data through the
interfaces that it offers,that allows them to be embedded
Teaching or learning by discovery, focuses on the within any application. It contains tools needed to perform
development of research skills on the part of the individual, transformations of data, classification tasks, regression,
based in particular on the inductive method, which facilitates clustering, association and visualization. It is designed as an
the development of this type of learning. Here the tutor extensibility-oriented tool. Consequently, adding new
proposes a series of exercises, and then the student will work functionality is a simple task. The implementation of the data
to find the criteria or rules necessary to solve them [9]. The mining algorithms can be applied from a command-line
consequences of the discovery by means of models have a interface or from its graphical interface.
novel effect on the student, since it implies a construction
based on the knowledge that he already possesses in facing a IV. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
learning situation [10]. This effect derives from the In general, the data obtained after the application of
possibility of connecting what has been learned with what the educational data mining techniques can be observed in Table
student already knows. In this way, it establishes meaningful
1, where from a sample of 528 students, it was found that 73%
links with the new information, and with the possibility of
applying this knowledge in new situations. Often, model fulfilled all the proposed activities between the established
discovery emphasizes the generalized validation of a goal of 8-10 / 10. In the following criterion it is found that
prediction model across multiple contexts. 16% of the students fulfilled the minimum base of activities
and obtained a given performance of between 6-8 / 10. In the
H. Data filtering
final criterion, 11% of students who did not meet the
Another area of interest in educational data mining is data minimum base of activities found themselves below the
filtering leading to human interpretation. Humans can make expected goal.
inferences about the data as long as they are presented
properly. The methods commonly used in the EDM area are
information and visualization methods.
The visualizations most used in the educational field are
usually different from those used to solve problems of
information visualization. This is due to the specific structure
and the meaning embedded in that structure, and which is
usually present in educational data. Data are filtered for
human interpretation for two key reasons: identification and
classification. When the data is distilled for identification,
they are shown so that a human being can identify known
patterns which are, however, difficult to formally express.
For example, a classic visualization of educational data
mining is the learning curve, which represents the number of
opportunities to practice a skill on one axis, and shows the
performance (such as the percentage of hits or time taken to
respond), on the other axis [8].
I. Tools for data mining in Moodle
One of the tools with which graphical and interactive
monitoring can be done is GISMO1. This provides a useful
visualization of the activities of the students. It allows tutors
to carry out a detailed follow-up of their students as in terms
of such aspects as course attendance, reading the materials,

1 2
http://gismo.sourceforge.net/ http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/
 Table II Application of mining of relationships having to treat the data. The management of virtual courses
# Of
# Of
# Of also allows a continuous improvement in terms of the use of
# Of tasks question
forums tutorials data that helps to realize projections or simulations.
Sample per naires Percentages
per per
period per
period period V. CONCLUSIONS
period
Meets all In this paper, we analyze the usefulness of the application
activities of data mining techniques in a course management system
385 16 8 16 14 73%
Expected such as Moodle. The analysis demonstrates how a system
average that, by default, contains tools for very general data
8-10 / 10
management that allows the user to apply data mining in
Meets
minimum
order to obtain useful information in a more efficient and
establishe
agile way.
d base of 86 >12 >6 >12 >12 16% The data mining applied in LMS platforms, provides
activities
useful information from its databases with regard to the
Expected
average
interaction between the student and the system in terms of
6-8 / 10
activities performed, hits and failures, notes and knowledge
Does not levels. In addition to the ability of these systems to support
meet adaptive or personalized teaching, they make the data mining
minimum application process address the specific problem of the
establishe students' learning process.
d base of 57 <12 <6 <12 <12 11%
activities Within the analysis of the data mining tools that allow the
Expected user to manage Moodle information, we have GISMO as a
average monitoring and follow-up system for students which allows
<6/10 us to extract the data associated with an online course, and
generates graphical representations that are explorable by the
tutors. However, this management system does not have the
The technique used for this analysis is that of relationship depth needed for the improvement of the diverse resources
mining, where the largest number of variables is used to available in the courses.
discover an existing relationship. In the application to the
On the other hand, Weka is a tool that allows us greater
specified case, it is possible to indicate that if the students freedom in the management of courses, since, with the use of
fulfill the greater number of activities, they will be able to its libraries, the extraction of knowledge from the database
surpass the expected goal. The analyzed EDM techniques can can be deepened. It allows the user to automatically analyze
be applied at par in the data, so that we can obtain several a large amount of data and decide which information is most
results of the analysis. For example to the results presented in relevant for fast and effective decision-making. This will
Table 1, we can apply the prediction technique with which undoubtedly help to carry out evaluations of the different
we can analyze potential students who are at risk of failing activities that have been considered as priorities in the case
the course with a considerable time. presented.
This information allows the course tutor to take steps to The use of these techniques allows tutors to obtain a
prevent the student from leaving the course and provide the detailed view of the data relating to each student, thereby
student with a personalized education. Based on the personalizing the education provided to the characteristics of
characteristics of a student such as knowledge, motivation each participant. For example, by obtaining detailed
and attitudes. These tools allow stakeholders to analyze what information on the different events of a course with statistical
factors lead the student to make concrete decisions in a values and their progression, a student classifier can be
created.
learning environment.
Data mining tools were applied to measure learning The purpose of classifying the students in this way is to
outcomes, taking into account the types of assessment create groups with similar characteristics, and ensures that the
mechanisms, both in terms of homework and with regard to resources are adapted to their needs. In the same way, the use
examinations. These simulations allow the tutor to predict the of these tools allows the tutor to discover the relationships
between the characteristics of the group under consideration
behavior of a course in terms of the development of an
and external factors.
activity, and allows the establishment of groups of students
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