Big data assignment: Reforms in the education system using IT

Question

Task:
Write a research report on big data assignment on the topic “reform education through implementing big data technology and overcoming the barriers”.

Answer

Introduction to the case scenario of big data assignment
Information technology is the key source of today's technological developments and innovations that led to benefit the education sector largely. Big data analytics is found to be helpful for the institutions of higher educations and this is why it has been used to make a big reform in the education sector with its fast data processing ability. The research paper developed in this big data assignment will discuss the key aim and objectives of this research and will provide some key challenges behind implementing big data. The paper will also make a literature review of the chosen topic. This paper will also demonstrate the significance and the change that big data can bring in the education sector if handle effectively.

1A. Literature Review
According to Huda (2017), big data analytics has been widely used in the corporate business in all over the world in different areas of business-like business intelligence and largely in marketing. However, for the last few years, Big data has been the center of attraction for the academic institutions. There are many academic institutions that are moving to cloud architectures in this modern era of technological development.

Raja and Nagasubramani (2018) state that with the advent of technology and the extensive uses of digital devices, the education system is approaching a state where the exposure of collecting more data has enlarged a lot and the enlarged exposure of collecting more data is creating scope to use big data for analyzing and correlating information that improves the quality of the education. From various academic journals, it has been observed from the last few years that it has become very important for the academic institutions like the secondary school, colleges or universities to use big data for delivering quality education and a healthy learning environment for the betterment of the society.

Huda et al. (2016) states that after reviewing various scientific research articles and academic journals across the world like the MIT report it is evident that the big data has become an integral part of the education system as it brought many changes and made vital reforms in the education system. It just does not offer exceptional opportunities through automated analytics that not just provides feedback on the study behaviour of the learner but also showcases progress and outcomes. The key motive of implementing big data in the education system is to make some serious reforms that are demanding in the modern time starting from the performance prediction to data visualization and course recommendation and behaviour detection.

Sources
As per Mourtzis, Vlachou and Milas (2016), many key challenges have been identified which act as a barrier or hindrance in implementing big data after reviewing the MIT Sloan Management Review report. The challenges that have been identified are stated below. In the education system, the analytical value and the importance of big data are found in their role to guide reform activities in higher education and also in their role to assist teachers for improving teaching and learning.

Yaqoob et al. (2016) states some key challenges in their journal include the inability to relate business problems with big data solutions, the cost of implementing big data, the scarcity of data warehouse and analytical tools, the quality of data and so on. It has been observed from the Mckinsey global report that the big data is limited or confined to a certain zone such as enrollment management, the progress of the student and optimization of resources. This limitation is mainly because of the barriers of data affordability or lack of culture, expertise and communication.

As opined by Lei (2018) with regards to the case scenario of big data assignment, it is evident from the scholarly articles that big data analytics in the higher education like in colleges or universities also face the challenges of searching the ways to learn from the piles of datasets that are being generated on a regular basis and to transform the data into useful information for both the students and the teachers. The researchers also argued that the implementation of big data is not so easy job as it is very expensive.

According to Mikalef et al. (2018), in many aspects, it is found to be true since the integration of big data demands the continuous up-gradation of tools and expertise which means that the institutions should have a healthy budget to be able to do this. Implementing big data also includes legitimate concern regarding the privacy policies for data, especially for those which are collected from the internet. These are the key barriers that preventing the academic institutions to implement and thereby integrate the big data and analytics in the academic sector to make reforms in a broader perspective.

Analysis and synthesizing
From corporate business to academic big data has emerged out as the buzzword that grabs the attraction of the world and fright as well to a certain extent. The implementation of big data has its pros and cons both. As mentioned above, the big data has brought many significant changes in the educational systems as the higher education system is quickly evolving with the emergence of new data every day. The MIT Sloan Management report stated that the digital learning is increasing on the developed and developing nation which results to collecting a huge pile of useful data for analytics which have been contributing largely to teaching and learning (Mikalef et al., 2018) The emergence of new data is helping the students from the different academic background in correlating amongst themselves and thereby helping each other in comprehending core concept and enhancing their skills and knowledge. Many colleges and universities across the globe have demonstrated that big data helps an institution significantly in strategic areas such as resource allocations and student success and finance (Lei, 2018). The report of McKinsey Global Institute on big data considered to prepare this big data assignment signifies that the most developed academic institutions in Europe have the biggest potential to use big data from inventions to widespread use for bringing the digital reforms in the education system.

However, what seems to be beneficial is the toughest to do. It is true that the big q and analytics has its significance to bring reforms into the education system and so far, it has been partially successful in doing so, however, a lot is yet to be done. To implement the big data into academics is not so as it has many drawbacks. Infrastructure is a serious issue as many developing or underdeveloped countries don't have the basic infrastructure to do so. MIT or some reputed universities have been able to implement and thereby upgrading their education system only because they have that resources by their side which is definitely not the case with every institution. Implementing big data to bring educational reform is also very expensive (Pereira et al., 2017). Therefore, after reviewing and analyzing various scholarly articles and educational report of various institutions it can be stated that the academic institutions need to improve their infrastructure and put emphasis to get available resources such as the fund to implement the big data inside the system. The educational institute needs to install traditional packet switching networks and point to point optical network and Middleware and DBMS, UI and supercomputer to implement big data and thereby making some significant reforms which will be useful for the academic learners.

2A. Research Problem
The research on big data assignment is done to assess how big data technology is helping to bring significant changes in the education system by overcoming the barriers. The problems identified while conducting this research related to the big data are inaccurate data, real-time big data analytics and security and privacy reasons. These are illustrated below:

Inaccurate Data
The most common problem related to big data is the inaccuracy of the data. The inaccurate data is the main reason why the big data has not been largely integrated in the education system.

Data Management
Another key problem with big data is that it is very hard to manage (Yaqoob et al., 2016). There has been an extensive increment in the data that student can access but managing the huge pile of data is indeed a tough task for the academic institutions.

Scarcity of Skilled people
It is evident in the research that most of the academic institutions do not have enough skill people to implement and make it run for a longer time. The academic institutions are lacking of such big data professionals.

Inability to identify fake news
Identifying the fake issues or data is of critical importance especially in the academic sector as fake data can mislead the students and this is a very critical issue in big data. This issue needs to handle and managed effectively in the big data as the fake data or news creates confusion amongst the learner and this inaccurate data or fake news spread like a virus in a flash (Torabi Asr and Taboada, 2019). Sometimes the data comes from authorized sources to make people believe about its identity but still could be fake. This makes the problem more interesting.

Problem Tree analysis
The problem, strategy and objective tree analysis one of the key tools of identifying the problems along with its cause and effect. It has many benefits but along with its benefits, it also cast some problems. It is very complicated and very difficult to comprehend all the causes and impacts of a problem (He et al., 2019). Another key problem that has been identified while conducting the research is that it is a very time-consuming process as it brings all factors together to analyse the issues.

Privacy
Data security has always been a key problem with big data and it seems to be bigger challenge for the academic institutions. The data that come into the academic institutions is made available from a variety of sources and there some of the sources that can not be trusted

Research Objectives
The aim of the research on big data assignment is to bring changes and make suitable reforms in the education system by the help of big data technology. The key objectives of this research are:

• To define the impact of big data in modern education
• To identify the key issues of implementing big data
• To demonstrate the research problems and thereby identifying the ways to improve it.
• To define the changes that big data will bring into academics
• To discover the ways the big data is bringing changes into the academics
• To identify the resources needed for implementing big data.

Research Questions
The research questions are presented to state the specific issue or problems related to the topic. The following research questions demonstrate exactly what is discussed so far.

• How big data with technological development is bringing changes?
• What is the importance of big data in academics?
• How hard it is to implement big data in academic institutions?
• What are the key challenges of implementing big data?
• What are the resources needed to implement big data in academics for educational reform?

Hypothesis
Hypothesis 1: Big Data can bring a lot of changes and reforms into the academics
Hypothesis 2: Greater challenges is associated with implementing big data.

What are the assumptions made on this research on big data assignment?
Assumptions are what is assumed to be true and assumptions can be risky in terms of big data (Williamson, 2017). Some of the key assumptions that are taken as true are listed below:

• The availability of the needful resources
• An easy and nonchalant complicated process
• Unanimous Privacy policies
• Strong security systems

These above-mentioned assumptions are the core points that everyone wishes to be true since only then the big data technology can be implemented all over the globe that will lead to better educational performance.

Conclusion
The research paper developed in this big data assignment has demonstrated big data technology and its impact on the educational system in the technologically driven world. The paper has reflected the significant importance in educational institutions and identified the factors that act as a barrier for implementing big data in academic institutions. The paper made a literary review on the key reforms that the big data could bring starting from digital learning to quick data processing. The paper also demonstrated some key research questions and research problems relevant to the topic and also outlined the key aims and objectives of this research. The paper concluded by discussing the hypothesis and listed some key assumptions that are important to be true for making the project successful.

References List
He, Z., He, Y., Liu, F. and Zhao, Y., (2019). Big data-oriented product infant failure intelligent root cause identification using associated tree and fuzzy DEA. IEEE Access, 7, pp.34687-34698.

Huda, M., Anshari, M., Almunawar, M.N., Shahrill, M., Tan, A., Jaidin, J.H., Daud, S. and Masri, M., (2016). Big data assignment Innovative teaching in higher education: the big data approach. TOJET.

Huda, M., Maseleno, A., Shahrill, M., Jasmi, K.A., Mustari, I. and Basiron, B., (2017). Exploring adaptive teaching competencies in big data era. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 12(03), pp.68-83.

Lei, W., (2018). The Path Analysis of Modern Educational Technology Promoting Education Development under the Background of Big Data.

Mikalef, P., Pappas, I.O., Krogstie, J. and Giannakos, M., (2018). Big data analytics capabilities: a systematic literature review and research agenda. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 16(3), pp.547-578.

Mourtzis, D., Vlachou, E. and Milas, N.J.P.C., (2016). Industrial Big Data as a result of IoT adoption in manufacturing. Procedia cirp, 55, pp.290-295.

Nalini, C. and Arunachalam, A.R., (2017). A study on privacy preserving techniques in big data analytics. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, 116(10), pp.281-286.

Pereira, C.K., Siqueira, S.W.M., Nunes, B.P. and Dietze, S., (2017). Linked data in Education: a survey and a synthesis of actual research and future challenges. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 11(3), pp.400-412.

Raja, R. and Nagasubramani, P.C., (2018). Impact of modern technology in education. Journal of Applied and Advanced Research, 3(1), pp.33-35.

Torabi Asr, F. and Taboada, M., (2019). Big Data and quality data for fake news and misinformation detection. Big Data & Society, 6(1), p.2053951719843310.

Williamson, B., (2017). Who owns educational theory? Big data, algorithms, and the expert power of education data science. E-learning and Digital Media, 14(3), pp.105-122.

Yaqoob, I., Hashem, I.A.T., Gani, A., Mokhtar, S., Ahmed, E., Anuar, N.B. and Vasilakos, A.V., (2016). Big data: From beginning to future. Big data assignment International Journal of Information Management, 36(6), pp.1231-1247.