Using Big Data analytics tool to influence decision-making in higher education: A case of South African Technical and Vocational Education and Training colleges

South African Journal of Information Management

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Using Big Data analytics tool to influence decision-making in higher education: A case of South African Technical and Vocational Education and Training colleges
 
Creator Selowa, Kleinbooi T. Ilorah, Appolonia I. Mokwena, Sello N.
 
Subject — decision-making; Big Data; Big Data analytics; TVET colleges; HiPPO; Hadoop; higher education
Description Background: Big data analytics in education is a new concept that has the potential to change the decision-making landscape in South African Colleges. Higher institutions of learning, including Technical and Vocation Education Training (TVET) colleges like all other organisations, rely on data for their decision-making. These decisions affect the way pedagogy and student management is administered. Colleges collect huge quantities of data in different formats from students, staff and stakeholders for different reasons and occasions.Objectives: The goal of this study was to investigate how Big Data analytics and their tools may improve decision making in TVET colleges in South Africa through the lens of actor-network theory (ANT).Method: A qualitative, interpretive inquiry was undertaken. A case study using focus group was conducted. The data collected through interviews were arranged into themes and a thematic approach was employed to analyse these themes using QDA Miner Lite software.Results: The results from focus group interviews revealed that TVET colleges collect an enormous amount of data. These data are extracted for different reasons, yet there are no Analytics used for decision-making. Decisions are made by the highest-paid individuals (HiPPO) in colleges.Conclusion: This dissertation recommends that the TVET colleges invest in data science skills for their staff, and Big Data infrastructure. Big Data technologies such as Mongo DB and Hadoop are recommended as the most commonly and advanced tools that can be used for Big Data analytics.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2022-08-30
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Case study
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajim.v24i1.1489
 
Source SA Journal of Information Management; Vol 24, No 1 (2022); 8 pages 1560-683X 2078-1865
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/1489/2216 https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/1489/2217 https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/1489/2218 https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/1489/2219
 
Coverage South Africa South Africa —
Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Kleinbooi T. Selowa, Appolonia I. Ilorah, Sello N. Mokwena https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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