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Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory pp 1–7Cite as

Education and Big Data

Synonyms

Analytics; Large data set; Learning analytics; Big data analytics

Introduction

Big data is a significant concern for many academics, largely because it is complex, unmanageable, and open to misuse. While there is a tendency to believe that “big data” might be bad and possibly dangerous, many types and uses for it exist. The challenge of big data for higher education is that it has been, until fairly recently, portrayed as something that is straightforward, clear, and easily delineated, when in fact it is none of these, and there is still relatively little consensus about how it might be defined. This entry explores how big data is defined, described, and utilized in different contexts. It explores different notions of analytics and suggests how these are having an impact on higher education. The entry then explores the claims that are being made about the objectivity of big data and sets these claims in the broader context of what can be claimed and what cannot. In the context...

Keywords

  • Big data
  • Analytics
  • Ethics
  • Education

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Worcester, Worcester, UK

    Maggi Savin-Baden

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  1. Maggi Savin-Baden
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Correspondence to Maggi Savin-Baden .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Michael Peters

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© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

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Savin-Baden, M. (2015). Education and Big Data. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_128-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_128-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-981-287-532-7

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