Universities are awash with data about students that could function as early warning signs that a student may need help. These data sources range from the highly personal, for example tutors observing that a student appears to be having a bad day, to the highly systematised, for example automatic early warnings based on a metric …
Big data/AI: examples of concerning practice unintended consequences
I'm not apocalyptic about the role of big data in society generally and education specifically, but I do feel strongly that we all have a responsibility to stand back and think about how we accept and use technology. The brilliant writer Yuval Noah Harari has written a great piece on the philosophical challenges of what …
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Five questions about learning analytics ethics
In the first term of my first year, I skipped a seminar on DH Lawrence. My tutor, Dr Mara Kalnins, pulled me up at the start of the next seminar and politely expressed her disappointment. She also asked me to make up what I'd missed by reading about Carl Jung. I'm not sure that what …
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Excellence from Analytics: Panel Discussion at Digifest, 12th March 2019
I have just taken part in a panel discussion at the Jisc Digifest 2019 event. The session was called Excellence from Analytics. I know that, as a panel, we all worried about whether we'd been informative (or excellent), but I found it really interesting to listen to the other panellists talk (perhaps not the point). …
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Favourite big data proving nothing story #1 (yes we’re doing shaggy dog stories now)
A few years ago a colleague attended an event with a company of data specialists. The company was experimenting with personalised learning for professionals. As I understand it they had lots of interesting ideas about personalising online learning. For example, if you got an answer wrong about marketing, you'd be routed to an easier set …
The first ever photo to feature a human being
I love this photo. It is of the Boulevard du Temple, taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838. It's possibly the first ever photo showing a human being. In the bottom left of the picture, there's a man having his shoes polished and the bootblack polishing them. They appear because they were standing long enough to …
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Issues using data-based alerts in learning analytics
One of the benefits of learning analytics is the capacity to not just automatically analyse data, but also to automate some or all of the next steps. I'm primarily interested in learning analytics for student success, for me the automatic alert when a student is potentially at risk of failure is key. Whether red flags …
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Submission to the All-Party Group on Data Ethics
In November 2018, the UK Parliamentary All Party Group on Data Ethics launched a call for evidence about the use of data and machine learning in four areas: Education Healthcare Autonomous vehicles Policing With the help of some excellent colleagues, I submitted a paper on behalf of the institution (Nottingham Trent University) outlining our great …
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Supposedly ‘fair’ algorithms can perpetuate discrimination (this is how to write a headline)
There are many articles that I wish I had written This is one of them Joi Ito dives into the, hopefully, by now familiar argument that even if the maths is right it can still be discriminatory.
Re-writing a learning analytics policy
I hate writing policy. I agonise over the words that feel so important at the time and know damn well that almost no-one's going to read it. But imperfect as it is, it's a framework/agreed set of standards that we can work towards. This piece is a work in progress, a public draft if you …
