Privacy and Learning Analytics: A Data Ethics Workshop for Library Professionals

DESCRIPTION:

Libraries are increasingly engaging with learning analytics at their institutions. This workshop will guide participants in exploring learning analytics, privacy theory, privacy-by-design principles, and much more through exercises from the “Privacy Sourcebook” that was created by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe and Kyle Jones. The “Privacy Sourcebook” enables librarians to document their thinking, reflect on their learning, and guide their practice in implementation. The workshop prepares librarians to engage in campus dialogues and initiatives related to learning analysis and parallel assessment and evaluation practices. 

Participants in the workshop will be able to:

• describe the social, political, and technological elements of learning analytics in higher education, generally, and academic libraries, specifically.
• analyze learning analytics and the ways in which they may create privacy harms.
• develop library learning analytics approaches that are based in privacy by design and the profession’s code of ethics.
• design an action plan for engaging with learning analytics, information privacy, and ethical practice at one’s home institution.

COURSE DETAILS:

Higher education institutions are facing significant accountability pressures to prove that their efforts produce valuable results and their resource expenditures are justifiable. In addition to traditional business intelligence strategies, colleges and universities have adopted learning analytics methods to investigate issues of student learning and success. Learning analytics are the “measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of [student and other data] for the purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs” (Siemens, 2012). Learning analytics have helped institutions optimize advising, predict student retention, and increase student engagement. Feeling the same pressures as their institutions, as well as the desire to contribute to student learning and success, academic libraries have begun to participate in learning analytics practices.

Nonetheless, regardless of the benefits that could accrue, learning analytics unquestionably presents challenges to student privacy, thus straining the professional ethics commitments that librarians make to uphold user confidentiality, respect privacy in information seeking and use, and support intellectual freedom. Librarians may feel a desire to refrain from engaging with campus learning analytics projects, meaning that librarian values around privacy and confidentiality are missing from campus conversations. This workshop seeks to overcome this hesitancy by providing training about privacy and other related ethical issues associated with learning analytics through structured, reflective activities that enable participants to plan for proactive engagement with campus learning analytics work and contribute to the development of privacy protections in learning analytics.

This workshop is an offering of Prioritizing Privacy, a multi-faceted continuing education program to train academic library practitioners to comprehensively address privacy and other related ethical implications of learning analytics projects. Prioritizing Privacy is supported by an IMLS National Leadership Grant. Additional information is available on the project website.

Course Facilitator

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
Professor & Coordinator for Research and Teaching Professional Development
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign & PI, Prioritizing Privacy

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe is Professor/Coordinator for Research and Teaching Professional Development in the University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the University’s School of Information Sciences, European Union Center, and Center for Global Studies. At Illinois, she has also served as the Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction, Acting Head of the University High School Library, Head of the Undergraduate Library, Acting Coordinator for Staff Development and Training, and Coordinator for Strategic Planning in the University Library. Previously, she was the Library Instruction Coordinator at Illinois State University and Reference Librarian at Parkland Community College. Read more…