A joint neural network model for combining heterogeneous user data sources: An example of at‐risk student prediction

Information service providers often require evidence from multiple, heterogeneous information sources to better characterize users and offer personalized service. In many cases, statistic information (for example, users' profiles) and sequentially dynamic information (for example, logs of interaction with information systems) are two prominent sources that can be combined to achieve optimized results. Previous attempts in combining these two sources mainly exploited models designed for either static or sequential information, but not both. This study aims to fill the gap by proposing a novel joint neural network model that can naturally fit both static and sequential user data. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, this study uses the problem of at‐risk student prediction as an example where both static data (personal profiles) and sequential data (event logs) are involved. A thorough evaluation was conducted on an open data set, with comparisons to a range of existing approaches including both static and sequential models. The results reveal superb performances of the proposed method. Implications of the findings on further research and applications of joint models are discussed.