Learning Analytics Made Easy Newsletter January 2025

Hi

Welcome to the first edition of the Learning Analytics Made Easy Newsletter.

I am glad you have joined!

If you're a learning and development professional or if you’re leading an learning and development team, this newsletter is for you.

My Personal Story: The LinkedIn Ban That Changed Everything…

Midway last year, I was unexpectedly banned from LinkedIn without any warning. Overnight, my entire network and years of content were gone. Some people even thought something terrible had happened to me because they couldn’t find my profile anymore. I spend a few days being very stressed trying to get my account back. And finally I did, but the experience taught me an important lesson:

Relying too heavily on a platform I don’t control is risky.

That experience is the reason I’m creating this newsletter. I realized I needed a space that I control and where I could directly reach out to people who like me are interested in learning analytics.

In addition, I felt it was time to create a community around this big and important topic where people can connect, discuss, ask questions, get advice & support as well as share success…

With your subscription to this newsletter, you’ll never have to worry about missing out on insights, tools, and strategies that can help you excel in your career and improve your and your organization's learning analytics efforts. I'll be sharing practical insights, useful tools, and real-world stories from my 20+ years in the field, all focused on helping you unlock the power of learning analytics and AI in your work.

The goal is simple: to help you make learning and development more data-driven, impactful, and easier to manage, whether you're leading a team or looking to upskill yourself in this essential area.

The first edition is focused on starting with learning analytics. What can you already do when you have the data? How can AI help you? What would a dashboard look like and how to start building data interpretation skills….

How to start with Learning Analytics

Stand Out by Making Data Your Best Friend

Learning analytics is consistently ranked in the top three priority skills for L&D professionals, yet so many are unsure where to begin.

Data can feel intimidating, but mastering it will set you apart in your role.

Start today by demystifying data and using it to make informed decisions that will enhance your career. Audience reach, completion rates and time spent on learning are three metrics that are not just extremely useful, they can also be calculated fairly simple using data available in most learning tools.

To help you on your way, I’ve created 3 cheat sheets that explain exactly why these metrics are valuable, how you can calculate them, and what analysis you could do!

Organizational Impact: The Data Mistake That Caused a Panic

Imagine presenting data that sends your leadership team into a frenzy – over nothing. That’s what happened to one of my clients when a simple statistical misunderstanding turned a 2% compliance issue into an apparent 20% disaster.

Understanding how to interpret learning data can prevent costly errors like this and ensure your L&D team is trusted and respected. But data interpretation can be tough. You have to be aware of pitfalls like survivorship bias, correlations vs causations and simply how sometimes data can be presented in ways that are at least confusing, and sometimes simply misleading. Here’s a series of articles to start learning all about data interpretation…

Analyze Your Learning Catalogue – Is It Working?

One of the biggest challenges I see in large organizations is inflated learning catalogues. It’s common for companies to have huge Learning Libraries containing all the titles created over the years, often supplemented by huge libraries from providers. But how many of those 30,000 courses are actually being used?

Take steps to analyze your learning catalogue, identify underused resources, and save your organization valuable time and money. Here’s an example dashboard for you to explore. An L&D Dashboard that brings insights into your L&D catalogue and helps you to identify area’s for improvement….

Making Learning Analytics Easy with AI

We’re using AI to make training more interactive and engaging. But have you considered using AI to start doing Learning Analytics?

AI isn’t just a buzzword – it’s already reshaping how we learn. At SLT, we’re using AI a lot, not just for experimentation, but also to create demonstration data, creating custom GPT models to create learning scenarios and using AI avatars for instruction videos.

But we also continuously explore how AI can help you with Learning Analytics. And we have to admit, AI cannot do all your analytics for you, but it can be a great help! Here’s some suggestions to get you started!

Upcoming Events and Resources

Learning Analytics Crash Courses

Get ready for "Learning Analytics Crash Courses" – a series of virtual events that will teach you very hands on and practical learning analytics (and AI!) skills over a 6 week period. Each session centered around popular topic tailored to your needs.

Each Crash Course is designed in such a way that you walk away being able to do a piece of analytics. And supported by AI (Naturally I would almost say!). Stay tuned for more information. Newsletter subscribers will get access to early registration.

February = Learning Catalogue Health Month

The whole month of February (including the February Newsletter Edition) will be themed around keeping your L&D catalogue healthy! With so many people having new years resolutions to improve their personal health. Why not consider the health of your L&D Catalogue!

As part of ‘February L&D Health’ month, we are launching a once off unique service to help you understand the health of your L&D catalogue and identify area’s for improvement. We will be your L&D doctor ready to diagnose your L&D catalogue health and provide expert advice on what you can do to improve its health!

Learning Analytics Toolkit

I’m excited to share that we are working very hard on our learning analytics toolkit. The Learning Analytics Toolkit is a treasure trove of video's, articles, case studies, performance support materials, practice materials, knowledge checks and challenging exercises to help any L&D professional to increase their knowledge and skills in learning analytics. Stay tuned for more details in the next issue.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.

Remember, taking the first step is the hardest part, but I’ll be here to guide you along the way.

Let’s make data work for you.

Best,

Peter Meerman