A perceived crisis of public trust in public institutions together with a focus on increased efficiency, effect and excellence of educational systems has led to more accountability measures. Increasing implementation of technology and digitalisation in schools has led to more educational Big Data used for quality assessment purposes. To measure educational performance for accountability purposes there has been a focus on more easily measurable performance indicators and results often derived from Big Data. Easily measurable metrics in accountability systems have often led to unintended consequences, which may harm an individual’s education and their future life chances. Examples include teaching to the test, narrowing of the curriculum, and misguided public/governmental funding. A solution offered by O’Neill is Intelligent Accountability. How can the increasing volumes of learning and educational data be used to present and assess learning and educational quality in an understandable way? 

This PhD project aims to investigate concept of Intelligent Accountability, as presented and understood by O’Neill, in the context of the Norwegian education system to find how how such an intelligent accountability system could or does work in Norway.