The Politics of Learning Analytics

Abstract

This chapter reviews the politics of learning analytics (LA) in universities to frame it as ethically charged towards a responsible and more nuanced LA in being measured. In the age of ‘algorithmic education’ and data-driven paradigms, the measurement and analysis of our digital learning profiles based on algorithms that measure our digital imprints and report outputs to guide and measure learning come with potential benefits and challenges. There are consequences to a digital ‘quantified’, ‘measured’, ‘audited’ and ‘surveilled’ self – that can be insightful and risky. This chapter argues that LA needs to be critically opened up towards more transparent, reflexive and relational paradigms to acknowledge richer learning ecologies that nuance humbler and more measured LA. In realising that learning is much more complex and distributed – beyond digital clicks – we are always more than the LA accounts of our digital audited (per)formed selves. LA’s performative power needs to be guided by questions concerning data for whom, by whom and for what purpose. Consequently, universities need to establish policies and practices underpinned by rigorous legal and ethical frameworks to explore the transformative possibilities of LA towards rich learning insights as well as their limits. Ultimately, in being measured by numbers and clicks, we are (con)figured by technology platforms, algorithms and data under constant surveillance. This chapter incites universities to being measured (meaning also cautious, careful and considered) to evolve humbler, more transparent, inclusive, co-driven and co-designed stakeholder LA policies and practices. For how our identities are (per)/(in)formed through LA matters ever more so given the unprecedented digital Big Data and our ever-increasing digital footprints.