CRLT invites applications for a Learning Analytics Research Assistant to work with CRLT’s Learning Analytics, Assessment, and Curriculum Teams. This is a great opportunity for students interested in using data to support initiatives to enhance teaching and learning in higher education. In particular, this position will provide research assistants with opportunities to contribute to efforts to promote student success, support learning, and improve the student experience. 

Common Projects Include:

• Creating visualizations that enable instructors to understand how program curricula or curricular requirements support programmatic learning goals
• Querying and combining institutional data sets in order to use UM administrative data to explore and support student success (e.g., course completion, course grades, retention and degree completion, pathways through curricula)
• Generating analyses and visualizations from custom surveys of students and instructors about curricular issues and the student academic experience
• Running code to generate generalized reports; improving and iterating on those reports

Research Assistant Details:

• This is a one term position, with the possibility of extension.
• Students should expect to commit 10 hours per week during the academic term.
• Schedules are flexible and can support hybrid work, but Research Assistants will need to be available for meetings and mentorship during CRLT’s regular work hours (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Friday)

Application Process:

• Submit as one file
  • a cover letter explaining your interest in the position and the skills you would bring to it;
  • your resume/CV;
• Should you be selected for an interview, we will ask you to respond to a brief data analysis task (1-2 hours total) in advance of your interview

Required Skills:

• Proficiency in R or Python for visualizations and statistical analysis of large data sets
  • Willingness to learn R if Python is preferred language
  • Familiarity with analysis/visualization packages like tidyverse, ggplot, or plotly
  • Being able to write code, debug, and run an analysis or visualization independently
  • Being able to search the internet, use GAI, or other resources when help is needed to figure out the appropriate code for visualizations and statistical analysis
• Experience with data cleaning, reshaping, and organization 
• Facility with descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing, and linear regression -- ideally with application to the social sciences
  • Selecting the appropriate statistical methods 
  • Interpreting results and determining if other statistical methods need to be used or incorporated
• Strong data visualization skills
  • Ability to select appropriate visualizations for a given data analysis and audience
  • Ability to determine the appropriate data and information to include in visualizations
  • Ability to create accessible and clear visualizations
  • Ability to engage in data storytelling (i.e., being able to describe findings for multiple audiences with varying backgrounds in data, and craft a narrative around those data)

Desired Skills: 

• Experience building SQL queries
• Experience managing/developing collaborative GitHub projects
• Facility with:
  • Logistic and multivariate regression
  • Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM)
  • Process analytics
• Curiosity and a desire to learn