Comments on: Policy and Strategy for Systemic Deployment of Learning Analytics – Barriers and Potential Pitfalls http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/adam/2013/10/31/policy-and-strategy-for-systemic-deployment-of-learning-analytics-barriers-and-potential-pitfalls/ Cetis Blogs Wed, 07 Jan 2015 09:19:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.22 By: Adam Cooper http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/adam/2013/10/31/policy-and-strategy-for-systemic-deployment-of-learning-analytics-barriers-and-potential-pitfalls/#comment-2723 Fri, 14 Feb 2014 10:09:12 +0000 http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/adam/?p=701#comment-2723 I’ve just been pointed at this post – http://redpincushion.me/2014/02/10/building-the-new-data-science-of-learning-eli2014-reflections/?utm_content=buffer3c486&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer – its by @amcollier, and is addressing “the new data science of learning” rather than institutional systemic learning analytics. She points to qualitative research methods, and inextricable links to practice… and makes a sense-ful critique.

]]> By: Adam Cooper http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/adam/2013/10/31/policy-and-strategy-for-systemic-deployment-of-learning-analytics-barriers-and-potential-pitfalls/#comment-2688 Fri, 13 Dec 2013 17:15:17 +0000 http://blogs.cetis.org.uk/adam/?p=701#comment-2688 I gave a rather more focused talk about some of the issues in this post at a symposium held by the University of London earlier this week. The slides are on slideshare – http://www.slideshare.net/adam_r_cooper/ride-symposium-2013-1210-a-cooper – although they don’t speak for themselves. Much of the discussion can be inferred from the above post but the essential message is that a combination of two factors, managerialism increasing in difficult operating conditions + the influence of BI and management reporting tradition, are compounded with an unjustified attraction to “big data” and solutionism comprise a serious threat to rich and multi-dimensional teaching and learning. A recent post by Mike Caulfield (from the same day as the symposium) hits one of the issues I mentioned but would have developed further if I had read it before: http://hapgood.us/2013/12/10/short-notes-on-the-absence-of-theory/

My talk led to a claim that a promising way of avoiding these threats, and by extension theory-absent approaches, is to follow participative design principles. This, in turn requires that we have a wider appreciation of a range of statistical, philosophical, and methodological matters across our organisations AND that we recognise deep epistemological differences rather than allow LA to cause more harm than good in our institutions by realisations based on implicit and unchallenged views of fact and truth.

]]>