Educational Process Mining: A Systematic Literature Review

Process mining (PM) is an emerging research discipline that is concerned with obtaining fact-based insights on how business processes are executed within an organization. It combines model-based and data-oriented analysis techniques to discover, monitor and improve executed processes by extracting knowledge from event logs generated and stored in information systems. When process mining techniques are applied to educational data, they are often referred to as Educational Process Mining (EPM), and in different case studies EPM results were promising. This paper presents a systematic review of the current status of research in this important area. We examined the literature on research with associated case studies conducted in the domain during the past eight years (2009-2016). Search terms identified 59 papers, but inclusion and exclusion criteria limited the key studies to 37. The research questions, methodologies and findings of these published papers were analysed carefully. This paper aims to highlight the use of process mining to improve educational processes, and to provide researchers with a comprehensive background for understanding the current work being undertaken in this field.