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 …
Category: Big data
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 and, it appears to me that there might be …
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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.
Weapons of Math Destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy
Like the last post ('Everybody Lies'), Weapons of Math Destruction is written by a data scientist. However, there is a significant difference between the tone of the two texts. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is clearly a bright guy, still fascinated with the potential of big data (although make no mistake, he can see the flaws and potential …
Everybody lies: what the internet can tell us about who we really are
In the UK, 2018 might come to be seen as an important year in our appreciation of just how significantly data is playing a role in our shaping our lives in ways that are surprising, horrifying and certainly without meaningful consent. We can be grateful of the actions of journalists in the Guardian and Channel …
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Should there be a data science equivalent of the Hippocratic oath?
Yes I'm going to follow up with a couple of book reviews, but I think the following taken from Cathy O'Neil's brilliant Weapons of Math Destruction deserves sharing widely. I will remember that I didn't make the world, and it doesn't satisfy my equations. Though I will use models to estimate value, I will not …
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Are We Building Algorithms of Oppression?
How ideological are the algorithms used in learning analytics? At the core of any learning analytics process is the algorithm. Algorithms are just computational lines of code, so they're neutral, objective, unproblematic. Of course we have to take into account the legal GDPR requirements for privacy and destroying old data etc., but surely we don't …
Am I using analytics in my own life?
Am I walking the learning analytics walk or just talking about it? Certainly stumbling. And given this lovely blog piece on the pedometer by @audreywatters measuring my steps might be a good place to start. Keeping fit I am a fitbit wearer. I like wearing a watch. I also quite like receiving alerts about meetings, texts and …
What numbers would you need to make a life changing decision?
I want to explore a sensitive matter about a real person who's discovered that he has cancer. I hope that I'm using this to illustrate an important point about the human capacity to interpret risk, but hope I don't lose sight of the humanity of this situation. On the 13th March 2018, the journalist and …
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