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…

The 2021 UNESCO report "Reimagining Our Futures Together" presented a compelling case for establishing a new social contract on education that addresses the persistent exclusion of vulnerable individuals and ensures that knowledge and learning contribute to a more sustainable future. Research literature highlights a global trend towards…

Emerging scholarship has brought critical attention to the increasing influence of digital platform architectures on learning across disciplines and contexts. Allied with such scholarship, this study examines how the logics of social media platforms create the conditions for new formations of literacy to emerge at the intersection of digital…

Accelerating advancements in learning analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) offers unprecedented opportunities for improving educational experiences. Without including students' perspectives, however, there is a potential for these advancements to inadvertently marginalize or harm the very individuals these technologies aim to support. This…

In June 2022, the Norwegian Expert Commission on Learning Analytics delivered an interim report to the Norwegian Minister of Education and Research. Motivated by the need to establish a solid foundation upon which to regulate and promote the use of learning analytics in the Norwegian educational sector, the Ministry asked the Expert Commission to…

The application of learning analytics (LA) to research and practice in higher education is expanding. Researchers and practitioners are using LA to provide an evidentiary basis across higher education to investigate student learning, to drive institutional quality improvement strategies, to determine at-risk behaviours and develop intervention…

Pre-emption describes a system of automated knowledge creation and intervention that steers the present towards a desirable future, by building on knowledge derived from the past. Folding together temporalities makes it impossible to disprove pre-emption. It is increasingly featured within EdTech, introducing new forms of automated governance into…

Evidence shows that appropriate use of technology in education has the potential to increase the effectiveness of, eg, teaching, learning and student support. There is also evidence that technology can introduce new problems and ethical issues, e.g., student privacy. This article maps some limitations of technological approaches that ensure…

Increasingly, data collection and analysis are core functions of higher education institutions. However, an EDUCAUSE QuickPoll revealed that just one in four (25%) of respondents believed the structure of data functions at their institution was ideal for their analytics needs, and only 16% of respondents indicated that their institutional data…

With this 2022 data and analytics edition, EDUCAUSE further expands their series of Horizon Reports to focus on an emerging area of practice that is driving institutional decision-making and strategic planning for the future--the trends, technologies, and practices that are shaping the world of postsecondary data and analytics. Based on a…

These proceedings contain the papers and posters of the 21st International Conference on e-Society (ES 2023) and 19th International Conference on Mobile Learning (ML 2023), organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) in Lisbon, Portugal, during March 11-13, 2023. The e-Society 2023 conference aims…

Data infrastructures exist in a variety of formats. This article draws on the insights of senior personnel involved in developing a new data dashboard in one state jurisdiction in Australia. While literature on dashboards often focuses on the teachers and learners influenced by them, there is less attention to those involved in their development…

Purpose: This paper aims to address research gaps around third party data flows in education by investigating governance practices in higher education with respect to learning management system (LMS) ecosystems. The authors answer the following research questions: How are LMS and plugins/learning tools interoperability (LTI) governed at higher…

Amidst ongoing technological and social change, this article explores the implications for critical education that result from a data-driven model of digital governance. The article argues that traditional notions of critique which rely upon the deconstruction and analysis of texts are increasingly redundant in the age of datafication, where the…

More data are collected, analyzed, and stored now than at any other time in history. Data processes play a foundational role in just about every professional discipline, and data stakeholders all over the world are grappling with modernizing and optimizing data governance policies and practices. In this rapidly evolving landscape, what challenges…