tag: Personalization and privacy
Blog Post
May 8, 2018
Setting the Table: Responsible Use of Student Data in Higher Education
Martin Kurzweil and Mitchell Stevens in EDUCAUSE Review
Martin Kurzweil and Mitchell Stevens published “Setting the Table: Responsible Use of Student Data in Higher Education” in the May/June 2018 issue of EDUCAUSE Review. As they note, “Rapid movement at the cutting edge of edtech has far outpaced changes in the laws, institutional policies, and ethical frameworks that were crafted to inform responsible use of educational information in the twentieth century. This makes for a jarring recognition, but also an opportunity to revisit and rearticulate guiding ideals of…
Blog Post
January 17, 2017
Help Needed
Creating Dialogue for Innovation Between Institutions and Industry
In November, several colleagues and I met with a group of graduate students in the humanities who were interested in exploring careers outside of academia. Our conversation spanned a number of topics related to these students’ academic and career goals, as well as Ithaka S+R’s research. One theme that emerged from this conversation was that these students were far more receptive to teaching with technology than many more-established academics are, though they still maintained a healthy skepticism. Perhaps this should…
Blog Post
November 3, 2016
Building Effective, Sustainable, Practical Assessment
Notes from the Library Assessment Conference
At the 2016 Library Assessment Conference, we had the opportunity to attend sessions on how to demonstrate the value of libraries, methods for data collection, analysis, and visualization, designing library spaces, and organizational issues facing the community. The conference, which attracted over 640 attendees, focused on building effective, sustainable, practical assessment. A number of themes that ran across the conference resonate with our ongoing work at Ithaka S+R. Data visualization There was an overwhelming amount of interest from both…
Blog Post
September 9, 2016
Leading the Way in Learning Analytics
Four Considerations
Earlier this week my Ithaka S+R colleagues and I published “Student Data in the Digital Era: An Overview of Current Practices,” in which we review how institutions of higher education are currently using student data, and some of the practical and ethical challenges they face in doing so. As we conducted research for this report, part of our Responsible Use of Student Data in Higher Education project with Stanford University, we heard recurring concerns about the growing role…
Blog Post
September 6, 2016
Stanford and Ithaka S+R Project on Responsible Use of Student Data in Higher Education
Newly available student data are making it possible to understand, improve, and represent student postsecondary learning and other outcomes in profoundly different ways. Yet the potential of these new uses remains under-realized. In addition to technical and coordination challenges, researchers, administrators, and instructors are facing complex questions about how to use these data responsibly. Ithaka S+R and Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Research through Online Learning (CAROL) have partnered on a new initiative to catalyze discussion, create resources, and begin…
Research Report
September 6, 2016
A Brief History of the Student Record
Abstract: This paper provides a brief history of the development and evolution of the student record. It argues that this history is best considered as generally consisting of three distinct periods: (1) an early period (1840-1910) that was characterized by large variation in student record keeping and a lack of defined relationships and hierarchy among educational institutions and levels. Uniformity in student record keeping—particularly with the adoption of the Carnegie Unit—became a way of solidifying practices of record keeping…
Research Report
September 6, 2016
Creating a Learning Higher Education Community
Every human undergoes a unique, life-long process of learning. Mostly, this process is informal, even accidental. Occasionally we choose to enter more structured learning environments – classrooms and seminars, schools and colleges – intentionally designed by more experienced individuals to foster, evaluate, and represent our progress. All of these experiences, from coincidental encounters to bureaucratized degree programs, make us who we are. Everyone involved in this process has decisions to make. Individuals engaged in learning make choices constantly: Should I…
Research Report
September 6, 2016
Student Data in the Digital Era
An Overview of Current Practices
Newly available data are making it possible to understand, improve, and represent student learning and other outcomes in profoundly different ways. With online learning platforms, technology-enabled educational tools, and other digital technologies, data about students and student learning in post-secondary settings have become unprecedentedly extensive and easy to access, interpret, and share. This growing ubiquity and granularity offer new opportunities for institutions, researchers, instructors, and other organizations to put student data to myriad uses: researchers can better understand student learning…
Research Report
September 6, 2016
Applications of Student Data in Higher Education
Issues and Ethical Considerations
The second Asilomar convention organized by Stanford University and Ithaka S+R in June 2016 brought together a group of academics to facilitate a review of how student data is currently used in higher education. The discussions aimed to synthesize current best practices to specify norms for the ethical use of student data; and inform institutional, national and global policies regarding the research, application, and representation of adult student data. This paper focuses on the applications strand which sought to yield…
Blog Post
May 17, 2016
The New Transcript and Predictive Analytics
Only a Matter of Time?
As interest in alignment between education and industry increases, higher education institutions are looking for new ways to signal their students’ industry-relevant skills and experiences to employers in ways that are meaningful and practical. A promising example is the “new transcript” that a number of US colleges are developing. The new transcript includes information that is more readily translated into job skills than traditional transcript data, such as specific course learning outcomes and hours spent on extracurricular activities and…
Blog Post
April 20, 2016
Responsible Use of Student Data
For several months, my colleagues and I at Ithaka S+R have been working with Mitchell Stevens, a professor at Stanford, on a project addressing the uses, challenges and opportunities for colleges and universities undertaking new forms of research, application, and representation of student administrative and learning data. Students’ increasing interaction with learning management systems, instructional technology, and administrative platforms is creating reams of new data about their learning behaviors and outcomes, and other experiences in school. And rapidly developing…
Blog Post
December 14, 2015
A Low-Cost Solution to Math Problems?
Summer bridge programs are a popular approach to helping students close gaps before they start their first year of college. These intensive, four to five week interventions aim to address multiple areas of academic need. Research suggests that summer bridge programs can help students start college on stronger footing, at least in the short term, although benefits fade by the end of two years without additional support. Because of their financial and time costs, summer programs are not a practical…
Research Report
December 14, 2015
Can Online Learning Improve College Math Readiness?
Randomized Trials Using Pearson’s MyFoundationsLab in Summer Bridge Programs
Far too many students in the United States start their postsecondary education without being able to demonstrate the skills and knowledge deemed necessary to succeed in college-level math. Colleges and universities have traditionally dealt with this problem by placing students in full-semester developmental courses for which they must pay full tuition but do not receive college credit. It has become clear, however, that this approach has serious drawbacks, as students who start out in remediation are far less likely to…
Blog Post
December 2, 2015
A Glimpse of the Future at ITHAKA’s Next Wave Conference
Last month ITHAKA hosted The Next Wave conference. We brought together people from both inside and outside the academy to discuss issues important to the future of education. Our broad theme was data, value, and privacy. As is always the case with ITHAKA meetings, we spent as much time projecting technology’s impact on the future as we did reflecting on how it is affecting us today. In this post I will share a few of the highlights and thought-provoking…
Blog Post
March 2, 2015
A User-Centric Approach to Privacy for the Academic Library
The shift of library services to online interfaces has led to an explosion in the potential for data gathering, and also to a growing conversation about how the data should and could be used. This past year has witnessed a strong dialogue about libraries’ responsibility for maintaining the privacy and security of the data. Leading experts have pointed out the astonishing number of ways that privacy and security are unintentionally compromised in libraries’ everyday service environment. Protecting the privacy…
Blog Post
December 10, 2014
What Role(s) Should the Library Play in Support of Discovery?
This week’s CNI meeting featured a variety of thought-provoking sessions on the digital issues facing academic libraries today, including privacy and preservation. I facilitated a session on Monday afternoon on discovery, using my recent issue brief on the topic to ask the question, “What Role(s) Should the Library Play in Support of Discovery?” While participants shared mixed views about the value of indexed discovery services at their institutions, with some expressing the sense of their real value especially…