(SpringerBriefs in Business Process Management) Learning Analytics Cookbook_ How to Support Learning Processes Through Data Analytics and Visualizatio

Chapter 3
Responsible Cooking with Learning
Analytics
Abstract Misuse of students’ data may cause significant harm. Educational institutions
have always analyzed their students’ data to some extent, but earlier that data
was stored locally and in analog form. The digital revolution has led to more data
being generated, stored, and linked, and more conclusions drawn from it. These new
possibilities demand a new code of conduct for generating, processing, using, and
archiving student data. It is crucial that ethical aspects are carefully considered
before collecting and using such data in learning analytics scenarios. This chapter
gives an overview of legal regulations, illustrates the critical aspects of working with
digital student data, and provides practical frameworks for ethics and data protection.
This chapter includes parts of legislations and guidelines that were presented in
a published article: Steiner, C. M., Kickmeier-Rust, M. D., & Albert, D. (2016). LEA
in private: a privacy and data protection framework for a learning analytics
toolbox. Journal of Learning Analytics, 3(1), 66-90. This chapter updates and
extends the original article.
Keywords Data protection · Ethics · Guidelines
3.1 The Responsible Learning Analytics Kitchen
Today’s learners have access to a broad range of digital devices, learning tools,
applications, and resources. Learning experiences occur in virtual and simulated
environments (e.g., serious games), and students connect to each other in social
networks, so the lines between the use of technology in educational settings, whether
in schools or in the field of workplace learning, and private settings are increasingly
blurred. All of these interactions and links could be captured, and multifaceted
learning processes can be analyzed using big-data analytics techniques (Pardo and
Siemens 2014). However, the increasing digitization of education, the increasing
capacity and adoption of learning analytics, and the increasing linkage of various
data sources have created ethical and privacy issues. An example is the advancement
in sensor technologies, wearables, and near-field communication technologies that
allow a person’s activities, locations, and contextual data to be tracked without the
© The Author(s) 2020
R. Jaakonmäki et al., Learning Analytics Cookbook, SpringerBriefs in Business
Process Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43377-2_3
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