[Webinar] Learning Analytics as Educational Knowledge Infrastructure with Simon Buckingham Shum

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Abstract: The emerging configuration of educational institutions, technologies, scientific practices, ethics policies and companies can be usefully framed as the emergence of a new “knowledge infrastructure” (Paul Edwards). The idea that we may be transitioning into significantly new ways of knowing – about learning and learners, teaching and teachers – is both exciting and daunting, because new knowledge infrastructures redefine roles and redistribute power, raising many important questions. What should we see when open the black box powering analytics? How do we empower all stakeholders to engage in the design process? Since digital infrastructure fades quickly into the background, how can researchers, educators and learners engage with it mindfully? This isn’t just interesting to ponder academically: your school or university will be buying products that are being designed now. Or perhaps educational institutions should take control, building and sharing their own open source tools? How are universities accelerating the transition from analytics innovation to infrastructure? Speaking from the perspective of leading an institutional innovation centre in learning analytics, I hope that our experiences designing code, competencies and culture for learning analytics sheds helpful light on these questions.

learning analytics,educational technology,