Mission statement
The eLearning Research and Practice Lab leads advances in understanding of students’ eLearning behaviors, performance, and outcomes, and their associated social contexts, through cutting-edge research that addresses practical and theoretical questions at the intersection of learning, education, and technology. Our research is collaborative — we empower faculty affiliates to examine student eLearning rigorously and responsibly, and to contribute their insights and expertise to an interdisciplinary research community. Through this work, we develop new evidence-based practices, interventions, and tools that advance student learning at Indiana University and beyond.
The intersection of learning, education, and technology
For decades, Indiana University has been a pioneer in learning technology. IU is the birthplace of the early ANGEL LMS, a founding member of the Sakai Project, home to the open-access eText revolution, the first university to purchase an enterprise-wide license agreement for Microsoft products, and more recently, one of the founding institutions of the Unizin Consortium.
A common feature of these digital transformation initiatives is that they produce data, and IU recognized that the effective, responsible use of these data requires a unit that facilitates translation of these data into research insights.
Some of the lab’s aims include:
- Bridging traditional boundaries, building an interdisciplinary academic community that achieves novel and actionable research insights that aid our nation’s efforts to educate the workforce of tomorrow
- Creating new tools to facilitate educational research in eLearning environments
- Addressing practical and theoretical questions about the use of technology in Indiana University’s learning environments
