Introducing new criteria for IR, using student data compared analysis based on Eduinformatics

Abstract

Recently, we proposed "Eduinformatics," a new field of education that combines both education and informatics. In addition, we introduced new criteria to utilize student data in Institutional Research (IR). In a previous article, we defined "primary data" as the first standard which is not combined linear data and "secondary data" as the second standard which is a linear combination of primary data. However, in this article we will present new definitions of Primary and Secondary data because our analysis of actual educational data has revealed that Secondary data is not only linear data, but also nonlinear. Moreover, we will present examples in which primary data was used to detect elements that could not be founded through the analysis of secondary data, and were pitfalls of compared analysis performed by IR practitioners.