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"Education is increasingly occurring online or in educational software, resulting in an explosion of data that can be used to improve educational effectiveness and support basic research on learning. In this course, you will learn how and when to use key methods for educational data mining and learning analytics on this data."

"Who knows - maybe one day learning scientists will be as accurate at predicting learning as weathermen are at predicting the weather. While that may sound like a dig against both professions, I actually mean it simply as an acknowledgment of how incredibly complex and dynamic both phenomena are."

"To help consumers understand the data being collected about them, Acxiom just launched a new website called AboutTheData.com. The site allows you to enter some personal information (name, birthdate, etc.) and discover what marketers think about you. Granted, the site is likely also a way for Axciom to build up its reservoir of data, but it's kind of fun to see what the marketing data says about us."

"At the end of the term, Hawkins will have completed the last college math class she will probably ever have to take. She will think back on this data-driven course model-so new and controversial right now-as the "normal" college experience. "Do we even have regular math classes here?" she asks."

The UL system has teamed up with the SAS software company of Cary, N.C. and MyEdu, of Austin, Texas, to create a massive data trove that should help make students more marketable to prospective employers and help those companies find the desired types of students. "This partnership allows us to use data to connect the dots," Woodley said. "It allows us to use data to target-market opportunities to our students they may not have known about."

Learning analytics holds increasing potential for student agency and autonomy, highlighting a need for ethical discourse at all levels of higher education institutions. Topics central to this dialogue include student awareness of analytics, the future of algorithms and learning analytics, and the redefinition of failure.

"More troubling is the microphone. The TV boasts a "voice recognition" feature that allows viewers to control the screen with voice commands. But the service comes with a rather ominous warning: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party." Got that? Don't say personal or sensitive stuff in front of the TV."

"We are seeing a surge in firms with offers to take institutions' data so that they can reformat it and make it available as dashboards, with trends and models. It is time to ask: Who is doing our data laundry, and why?"

"while these are worthwhile efforts, it is crucial for institutions to use predictive analytics ethically. Without ethical practices, student data could be used to curtail academic success rather than help ensure it. For example, without a clear plan in place, an institution could use predictive analytics to justify using fewer resources to recruit low-income students because their chances of enrolling are less sure than for more affluent prospective students. "