Towards an ecological understanding of ethics and student privacy in learning analytics.

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Abstract:

As higher education becomes increasingly digitised and datafied, successful and ethical learning analytics will depend on the extent to which learning analytics understands itself as ecosystem not only linked to other institutional and intra-institutional data ecosystems and data interests, but also to a broader commercial and political data ecology. Understanding student data interests in learning analytics as part of a broader data ecology, allows us to reconsider the some of the ethical and privacy issues in learning analytics.

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Bio:

Paul Prinsloo is a Research Professor in Open and Distance Learning in the Department of Business Management, College of Economic and Management Sciences, University of South Africa (Unisa). He is a Visiting Professor at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany, a Research Associate for Contact North I Contact Nord (Canada) and a Fellow of the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) and serves on several editorial boards. Paul is an internationally recognised speaker, scholar and researcher and has published numerous articles in the fields of teaching and learning, student success in distance education contexts, the ethical collection, analysis and use of student data in learning analytics, and (digital) identities.

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