Posts on the use of data to understand and improve teaching and learning processes. This may include activities otherwise known as “curriculum analytics” etc.
One of my guidelines for when consent may be an appropriate basis for processing personal data is whether the individual is able to lie or walk away. If they can, then that practical possibility may indicate a legal possibility too. When we’re using learning analytics, as a production service, to identify when students could benefit […]
We’ve just responded to the ICO’s request for feedback on Profiling under the General Data Protection Regulation. Thanks to the work we’ve already done on Learning Analytics, we were able to include several examples of good practice in that area, including the Code of Practice we developed with universities and the National Union of Students.
Recently I’ve been doing some work with Niall Sclater on how education organisations might inform students about the use of learning analytics, and when they might seek students’ consent. The resulting blog post is at https://analytics.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2017/02/16/consent-for-learning-analytics-some-practical-guidance-for-institutions/
At Jisc’s Learning Analytics Network meeting last month I presented an updated version of my suggested legal model for Learning Analytics. The new version adds the data collection stage(s) and seems to me – both as a sometime system developer and privacy-sensitive student – to provide the kinds of guidance, choices and protections that I’d […]
Abstract: Reconciling big data techniques with a legal approach relying on prior consent has proved difficult. By definition, when organisations collection personal information for data-led investigations they do not know what the results and impact of their processing will be. This paper suggests how other parts of the current European data protection framework can provide […]
[UPDATE: the full paper describing this approach has now been published in the Journal of Learning Analytics] [based on Doug Clow’s liveblog of the talk I did at the LAEP workshop in Amsterdam] I was a law student when I first came across learning analytics; the idea of being asked “do you consent to learning […]
[roughly what I said in a presentation yesterday to the Northern Universities’ Consortium] I’ve been a full or part-time student for more than thirty years. It’s interesting to reflect on how my student record has changed over that time. In 1981 university administrators no doubt put my typed application in a paper file. Each year […]
Since becoming involved in Jisc’s work on learning analytics, I’ve been trying to work out the best place to fit the use of students’ digital data to improve education into data protection law. I’ve now written up those thoughts as a paper, and submitted it to the Journal of Learning Analytics. As the abstract says: […]
Last week I gave a seminar “Big Data Wrongs and Rights” at Southampton University on how data protection law could provide support and guidance for universities’ use of learning analytics. The next day Jisc launched a Code of Practice on Learning Analytics, which puts many of the same ideas into practical form. After the seminar […]
A recent conference on student data included perspectives on learning analytics from the OECD and the European Commission. Stephan Vincent-Lancrin (OECD) looked at how improving our use of student data could improve the quality of education provided. He noted that a considerable volume and variety of data about education is already generated within universities, and […]