USING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TYPE TOOLS FOR ENHANCING THE PERFORMANCE OF LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Modern learning institutions, in particular those that carry on distance learning programmes and those that use advanced e-Learning platforms for the teaching activities they are conducting, are gathering more and more data in electronic format that can be analysed in order to obtain valuable information that can be applied to optimize their own activities. As long as the data volumes gathered are not too large, analysing it is not very difficult and most businesses that carry on learning activities can do such analysis without implying specialized tools. However, the benefits of analysing small volumes of data can be limited and for this reason most institutions do not do such analysis. On the other hand, when the data volumes recorded become larger and larger, there are both advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage that has to be mentioned is that the potential benefits become more and more important. The disadvantages that have also to be taken into account are that specialized computational tools and techniques are needed in order to be able to extract useful knowledge from the data available. Business intelligence type tools are based manly on the modern data analysis techniques that can be applied on large volumes of data. These type of tools can be applied by any business to extract useful knowledge from the data available and to improve their performances and gain an advantage in the competitive environment. The present paper aims to explore the possibilities of applying business intelligence type tools on the data available to learning institutions and find ways to enhance their performances in an environment that is more and more competitive.