Bio
I work at the intersection of learning analytics, learning technologies, applied educational psychology, survey methodology, and data science. I serve as Assistant Dean for Digital Innovation and Data Scientist at the University System of Georgia eCampus, where I lead our Data Science and Salesforce teams. I am also a doctoral student in Learning Sciences and Learning Technologies at Georgia State University. My work centers on using learner data to improve educational outcomes, predict student behavior, and make our operations and learner experience more efficient. I’m especially interested in helping students adopt and sustain effective study strategies, such as retrieval practice and spaced learning, and in how evidence-based interventions and AI-driven tutoring tools can support them in becoming more strategic, motivated, and self-regulated learners. I am also passionate about designing and analyzing surveys that help us understand how students perceive and experience our learning environments.
Our Data Science team builds on Posit Team, using R, Quarto, Shiny, and Plumber to develop data applications, deliver insights, and host our own APIs. Like many data scientists, I also serve as a data engineer: I build and maintain our MS SQL and PostgreSQL databases, along with data pipelines developed in Quarto and deployed on Posit Connect.
Research Interests
Using learner data to improve student learning outcomes through continuous improvement and predictive modeling
Interventions that promote the adoption and sustained use of effective study strategies
Applied interventions that foster growth mindset, self-regulated learning, and expectancy-value beliefs
Machine learning and large language models (LLMs) for personalized tutoring and study support
Survey methods for measuring student perceptions, beliefs, and experiences
Degrees & Certificates
- Georgia State University: Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) in Learning Sciences — Learning Technologies (in-progress)
- Georgia State University: Master of Science (M.S.) in Educational Research — Research, Measurement & Statistics (2024)
- University of North Georgia: Post-Master’s Certificate in Transfer Leadership & Practice (2019)
- Georgia Southern University: Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Higher Education Administration (2017)
- Georgia State University: Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Religious Studies & Philosophy (2012)
Relevant Professional Experience
University System of Georgia (USG) eCampus
- Assistant Dean for Digital Innovation & Data Scientist (2025 - present)
- Leadership position over the Data Science & Salesforce Teams with 5 direct reports and 5 indirect reports
- Data Scientist & Learning Analyst (2023 - 2025)
- Leadership position with 4 direct reports (2 FTE, 2 Students)
- Associate Director of Analytics & Research (2023)
- Leadership position with 1 direct report (1 FTE)
- Educational Program Specialist, Assessments & Analytics/Data Analyst (2021 - 2022)
University of West Georgia
- Assistant Registrar for Graduation (2018 - 2021)
- Leadership position with 5 direct reports (3 FTE, 2 Students)
- Adjunct Instructor, First Year Programs (2018 - 2019)
Georgia State University
- Senior Enrollment Services Assistant (2016 - 2018)
- Admissions Representative (2015 - 2016)
- Law Library Associate (2012 - 2015)
Emory University, Pitts Theology Library
- Cataloging Specialist (2014)
Teaching Experience
University of West Georgia — XIDS 2002: College Ethics
Fall 2019 - Fall 2020, in-person and hybrid
This course examines ethical questions and situations that affect college students in the American higher education system. Topics include affirmative action, free speech & campus protest, friendship & dating in college, sexual misconduct, the costs of higher education, financial aid, plagiarism, performance-enhancing drugs, extra credit and the aims of higher education.
Skills & Software Proficiency
| Skill Area | Details |
|---|---|
| Research | Research design, hypothesis testing, sampling theory, survey design and implementation |
| Statistical Analysis | Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics (parametric & non-parametric), regression (linear, logistic, Poisson, etc.), Bayesian statistics |
| Machine Learning/LLMs | Logistic regression, k-Means, k-Nearest Neighbors, Naïve Bayes, decision trees, Claude/ChatGPT (prompt engineering, retrieval augmented generation RAG), Claude Code |
| R Programming Language (Expert) | R, R Studio, R Markdown, Flexdashboard, Quarto, Shiny, Plumber, Posit Cloud, Posit Workbench, Posit Connect, Posit Package Manager |
| SQL (Advanced) | Proficient in querying data from Microsoft SQL Server and similar SQL applications (Google BigQuery, MariaDB, etc.) |
| Tableau (Expert) | Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep, Tableau Server Administration, Tableau Cloud |
| Microsoft Excel / Google Sheets (Expert) | Power Pivot, VBA, Data Modeling, SQL |
| Machine Learning/LLMs | Logistic regression, k-Means, k-Nearest Neighbors, Naïve Bayes, decision trees, Claude/ChatGPT (prompt engineering, retrieval augmented generation RAG), Claude Code |
| R Programming Language (Expert) | R, R Studio, R Markdown, Flexdashboard, Quarto, Shiny, Plumber, Posit Cloud, Posit Workbench, Posit Connect, Posit Package Manager |
| SQL (Advanced) | Proficient in querying data from Microsoft SQL Server and similar SQL applications (Google BigQuery, MariaDB, etc.) |
| Tableau (Expert) | Tableau Desktop, Tableau Prep, Tableau Server Administration, Tableau Cloud |
| Microsoft Excel / Google Sheets (Expert) | Power Pivot, VBA, Data Modeling, SQL Server integration |
| SPSS/Jamovi (Advanced) | Hypothesis testing, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, machine learning |
| Other | Git, GitHub, Qualtrics, Survey Monkey, Smartsheet, Linux (Ubuntu/RHEL), Bash |
Most used R packages: Tidyverse (tidyr, dplyr, ggplot2, tibbles, stringr, lubridate, readr, forcats), Tidymodels, Caret, Shiny, GoogleSheets4, Janitor, Knitr, purrr, SalesforceR, GT, reactable, psych, ellmer, ShinyChat, Ragnar
Certifications
| Provider | Certification | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Salesforce | Salesforce Certified Associate | 2025 |
| Tableau | Certified Tableau Data Analyst | 2022 |
| Qualtrics | Qualtrics Certified Core XM Expert Researcher | 2019 |
| Google Data Analyst | 2021 | |
| CITI | Social & Behavioral Researcher | 2021 |
The majority of my work is done in private repositories and behind firewalls. I have done my best to showcase selected projects here.
Key Achievements
Learning Analytics Dashboards
Developed a series of dashboards and reports in Tableau/R Shiny connected to learning management system (LMS) data to provide instructional designers & faculty with actionable insights into course performance and areas for improvement. Dashboards include grades, learning outcomes, rubrics, quiz item analysis, and LMS system access.
Course Learning Analytics Reports
The course learning analytics reports represent a cornerstone of our learning analytics operations at USG eCampus, leveraging the standardized nature of eCore course offerings to deliver comprehensive insights into student outcomes, behaviors, and learning activities at scale. Built using Quarto and deployed to Posit Connect, each course offering in eCampus has an associated analytics report that provides a holistic view of course performance and student engagement. These reports begin with foundational course information including descriptions and learning outcomes, then progress through five-year enrollment and grade distribution trends, detailed learning outcomes analysis, and in-depth examination of gradebook patterns. The reports dive deeper into specific assessment types with dedicated analyses of course quizzes and assignments, while also tracking how students interact with course content including access patterns and engagement frequency. Finally, each report incorporates multiple layers of student feedback through course module surveys, end-of-course evaluation surveys (featuring LLM-generated summaries of qualitative responses), and course withdrawal surveys, creating a comprehensive feedback loop that informs continuous course improvement efforts.
Quiz Item Analysis Application
The quiz item analysis dashboard performs item analysis analytics based on methods in classical testing theory for better understanding student and quiz performance from quizzes in the D2L LMS. This application includes descriptive statistics on student performance, discrimination analysis, item-rest correlation, and quiz item analysis. Many of these features are developed using the psych and ctt R packages. Further, this application connects to the OpenAI API using the ellmer R package for an LLM review of quiz questions ensuring accuracy and question feedback.
Machine Learning Student Risk Model
Implemented a student risk model for detecting students who may be at risk for not passing their online, asynchronous courses using k-Means in R. To accompany this model, I designed a Tableau dashboard that integrates with the Salesforce CRM to provide Student Success Team members with data about student performance including course access trends, grades, missing assignments/quizzes, and participation in online discussions. Additionally, R scripts were generated to combine all this information using the Salesforce API to generate cases in Salesforce.
Faculty Course Evaluation Reports
Created comprehensive course evaluation reports for course faculty. Reports include metrics about student success and their results from their course evaluation surveys. These interactive HTML reports were developed in R Markdown and reduce the administrative burden of compiling report manually each semester saving hours of work.
Learning Outcomes Reports
In Fall 2021 eCore and eMajor learning outcomes reporting transitioned from faculty reporting to being generated through the learning management system data. This process reduced faculty workload and increased the reporting capabilities of this data for assessment and accreditation purposes.
ETL (Extract, Transform & Load) Processes for INGRESS & LMS Data
Designed and implemented ETL processes for receiving student and LMS data from INGRESS / D2L (via SFTP) and automated imports into the eCampus Analytics Database (SQL Server). This process significantly reduces staff time manually extracting these files and allows dashboards deployed into Tableau to have near-real-time data.
Presentations
- Joe Fernander and Kelly Steed: A Data-Driven Approach to Redefining RSI, Distance Learning Administration Conference, Jekyll Island, GA (2025)
- Joe Fernander: Leveraging Learner Data and Explainable Machine Learning to Support At-Risk Students, Distance Learning Administration Conference, Jekyll Island, GA (2024)
- Aimee Berger and Joe Fernander: Practice Makes Progress: Lessons from Learning to Learn, Meaningful Living in a Digital World Conference, Savannah, GA (2023)
- Joe Fernander: Panel Discussion on Data and Technology, University System of Georgia Momentum Summit IV, Atlanta, GA (2023)
- Joe Fernander and Aimee Berger: Supporting Online Math Students with a Scaled Growth Mindset Intervention, Distance Learning Administration Conference, Jekyll Island, GA (2023)
- Joe Fernander and Kelly Steed: eCampus Introduces New Data-Driven Processes in the Course Revision Cycle, Distance Learning Administration Conference, Jekyll Island, GA (2023)
- Joe Fernander and Kelly Steed: Democratizing Learning Analytics: The Development of Evidence-Based Curriculum Design at USG eCampus, InteractUSG, Savannah, GA (2023)
Publications
- Brittany Grissette, Amanda Hawkins, Sarah Kuck and Joe Fernander: The Effect of Collaboration and Utilization of Academic Coaches in Online Learning Environments, Advances in Online Education (in review, 2023)
Reports
- Joe Fernander: Assessing the Effectiveness of Virtual Labs in Asynchronous Introductory Biology Courses, University System of Georgia eCampus (2023)
- Joe Fernander: Does course reinstatement affect course outcomes in eCore asynchronous online courses?, University System of Georgia eCampus (2023)
- Joe Fernander: Exploring the relationship between late registration and academic performance, University System of Georgia eCampus (2022)
- Joe Fernander: Is there a significant difference in proctored exam scores based on exam modality?, University System of Georgia eCampus (2022)
- Joe Fernander: An analysis of the University System of Georgia Mindset Learning Project, University System of Georgia (2022)
- Joe Fernander: What strategies do eCore instructors use to achieve high response rates on end-of-course evaluations? (2022)