The physical locations and cultures, in which students learn. School policies and its governance are also considered as characteristics of the educational environment.
Published in Chapter:
Big Data in Higher Education
Marta Vidal (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain), Javier Vidal-García (University of Valladolid, Spain), and Rafael Hernández Barros (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)
Copyright: © 2017
|Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-2537-0.ch001
Abstract
Big Data refers to large volumes of information – on diseases, ticket sales, and so on – that standard database tools such as MySQL and Oracle, cannot easily process. Thus, data analytics tools, such as InfoGram and Google Fusion Tables, are required to manage the information. The processed data is useful in several ways. For instance, public health officials may use the results of the analysis to explain the spread of viruses including the H1N1 virus (Mayer-Schönberger & Cukier, 2014, p. 2). Airplane companies may use the results to predict changes in ticket prices. Apart from the medical and aviation industries, institutions of higher learning also collect significantly large quantities of data. Hence, the analysis of Big Data also takes place in higher education. The beneficiaries of the analysis include students and administrators.