Big Data offers opportunities and challenges in all aspects of human life. In relation to research ethics, Big Data represents a normative difference in degree rather than a difference in kind. Data are more messy, rapid, difficult to predict, and difficult to identify owners; but the principles of informed consent, confidentiality, and prevention…

Multi-lab projects are large scale collaborations between participating data collection sites that gather empirical evidence and (usually) analyze that evidence using meta-analyses. They are a valuable form of scientific collaboration, produce outstanding data sets and are a great resource for third-party researchers. Their data may be reanalyzed…

The Nebraska Statewide Workforce & Educational Reporting System (NSWERS) is a state longitudinal data system (SLDS) that coordinates data sharing, processing, and dissemination efforts across the Nebraska public school systems, Nebraska community colleges, the University of Nebraska system, the Nebraska Department of Labor, and other statewide…

In today's digital world, higher education institutions collect and use more data than ever. However, institutional silos create barriers for stakeholders who need data for daily operations and strategy. This article presents a vision of a unified, collaborative future for data governance and actionable steps stakeholders can take.

Open science has become an important part of contemporary science, and some open science practices (such as data sharing) have been prominent aspects of Educational Data Mining (EDM) since the start of the field. There have been recent pushes for EDM to more fully embrace the range of open science practices that are seen in other fields. In this…

This article explores potential uses, misuses, beneficiaries, and tensions of learning analytics in higher education. While those promoting and using learning analytics generally agree that ethical practice is imperative, and student privacy and rights are important, navigating the complex maze of ethical dilemmas can be challenging, particularly…

Missing data can significantly influence results of epidemiological studies. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is a popular epidemiological dataset. We examined recent practices related to the prevalence and the reporting of the amount of missing data, the underlying mechanisms, and the methods used for handling missing…

Amid the increasing reliance on digital tools and services in education, this article examines the datafication and commodification of student life in Denmark. We analyse the web and app (iOS and Android) versions of 45 tools and services that teachers in Danish public primary schools use as part of their teaching, the types of data generated by…

In today's online data-driven world, people constantly shed data and deposit digital footprints. When individuals access health services, governments and health providers collect and store large volumes of health information about people that can later be retrieved, linked and analysed for research purposes. This can lead to new discoveries in…

As a result of the growing commercial marketplace for teachers' digital data, a new organization that includes educational data brokers has evolved. Educational data brokerage is relatively intangible due to the ease of de-identified data being collected and sold via educational technology. There is an urgent need to expose how the brokerage of…

Biomedical data science education faces the challenge of preparing students for conducting rigorous research with increasingly complex and large datasets. At the same time, philosophers of science face the challenge of making their expertise accessible for scientists in such a way that it can improve everyday research practice. Here, we…

In 2009, John Hattie's book Visible Learning: A Synthesis of over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement brought big data to education. In the decade and a half since Visible Learning was originally published it has been aggressively marketed and has now grown into a large suite of branded books, tools, and products. Visible Learning continues…

While previous educational governance literature on datafication has paid attention to comparison across spatial entities like countries and schools, temporal comparison in terms of progression (including prediction) has received less attention. One of the material forms in which progression and prediction data are circulated is the visual form of…

This article introduces the concept of the carrying capacity of data (CCD), defined as an integrated, evaluative judgment of the credibility of specific data-based inferences, informed by quantitative and qualitative analyses, leavened by experience. The sequential process of evaluating the CCD is represented schematically by a framework that can…

This article explores utilizing a post-graduation success lens to help community college leaders frame the challenges of achieving equitable improvement for their students. Specifically, it posits that providing and exploring customized labor market data presented in an accessible format can help institutional leaders provide a "true…