Innovating Curriculum Design in Higher Education with Text Mining

Technological and societal transformations in last decades are impacting every aspect of our lives, and teaching and learning are not immune to change. New topics, means, pedagogical approaches, and certifications are emerging for updated learning opportunities in line with the need of industries and societies. However, the fast pace of such transformation is in contrast with the slow change rate of educational institutions, increasing the complexity for innovating in Higher Education. The large availability of data related to the education realm is going to be an absolute game changer for the current and the next generation of educators: timely information on the trends and needs of industry and society may indeed enable an effective and efficient response towards the change. Several models and instructions are proposed to face this transformation leveraging on data. However, educational providers are struggling in harmonizing all the possible actions and implementing the activities. Therefore, the present thesis proposes an approach for innovating in Higher Education, focusing on the curriculum design process and leveraging on data and text mining techniques for informed decision-making process. The application of the approach is developed for the university educational offer, with a focus on Italian context.