oulad

Data loaders for the Open University Learning Analytics Dataset (OULAD), packaged for convenient use in R.

This package provides a reproducible structure for working with the seven core OULAD tables in efficient Parquet format, along with helper functions for loading and filtering them.

Installation

# Install from GitHub
# (requires remotes or devtools)
remotes::install_github("data-edu/oulad")

# Load the package
library(oulad)

Data Overview

This package mirrors the original OULAD tables:

Function	Description
oulad::assessments()	Assessment structure and key dates
oulad::courses()	Module and presentation metadata
oulad::studentAssessment()	Student submissions and assessment results
oulad::studentInfo()	Demographics, age band, region, etc.
oulad::studentRegistration()	Student module registration records
oulad::vle()	Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) materials and release info
oulad::studentVle()	Large log of student interactions with VLE materials

How to Load the Data

library(oulad)

assessments <- oulad::assessments()
courses <- oulad::courses()
student_assess <- oulad::studentAssessment()
student_info <- oulad::studentInfo()
student_reg <- oulad::studentRegistration()
vle <- oulad::vle()
student_vle <- oulad::studentVle()

How to Join the Data

library(oulad) 
library(dplyr)

students <- student_info %>% 
    left_join(courses) %>% 
    left_join(student_reg)

assessments <- student_assess %>% 
    left_join(assessments)

interactions <- student_vle %>%
    left_join(vle) %>%
    left_join(courses)

Developers

The raw OULAD CSV files are not distributed with this package because of their size.
To rebuild the Parquet files locally, first download the dataset from the official OULAD site:

Download source:
https://analyse.kmi.open.ac.uk/open-dataset

Then, place the CSVs under data-raw/csv/ and run:

source("data-raw/make-extdata.R")

This script will convert the CSVs into compressed Parquet files under inst/extdata/ for fast access in R.
These files are ignored by version control (see .Rbuildignore).

Authors

• Joshua M. Rosenberg – University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• Kelly L. Boles – University of Tennessee, Knoxville

License & Citation

Data © The Open University, used under the terms of the OULAD license.

If you use this package or the data in research or teaching, please cite:

Kuzilek, J., Hlosta, M., & Zdrahal, Z. (2017).
Open University Learning Analytics Dataset (OULAD).
Scientific Data, 4, 170171.
https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.171

and

Rosenberg, J. M., & Boles, K.L. (2025).
oulad: Load and use the Open University Learning Analytics Dataset (OULAD).
GitHub repository: https://github.com/data-edu/oulad