Page - 49 - in Radical Solutions and Open Science - An Open Approach to Boost Higher Education

3 TheEthical IssuesofLearningAnalytics… 51 3.4.5 Surveillance,TrustandLearning Long and Siemens describe howLearning analytics can assist all stakeholders to penetrate“thefogthathassettledovermuchofhighereducation”(Long&Siemens, 2011,p.40). Increasingvisibility isgenerallyunderstoodasagood thing,butcould it also be that the fog can sometimes be an essential enabler of education? Fried argued that There canbe no trustwhere there is no possibility of error.More specifically,man cannot know that he is trustedunless hehas a right to actwithout constant surveillance so that he knowshecanbetray the trust.Privacyconfers that essential right. (Fried,1970,p.56) Trust isnotthesameasalackofsurveillance,butsurveillanceactstoreducetrust. It is trust shown towards students that enables them to demonstrate autonomy and initiative,andto learnfromtheirownmistakes. Itcan thereforebearguedthatwhile dispelling the fog in educationmay have befits, and it also changes the behaviour of students.Writing about the educational application of online forums before the emergenceofLA,Dawson(2006)notedthat“behaviour isalteredwhenstudentsare aware of surveillance techniques” and that “attentionmust be given to themanner inwhich online discussion forums efficiently construct new subjects that are both ‘productive’ and ‘docile’”. Idescribeas‘cognitiveengineering’ thisuseof technologytoconstructaproduc- tiveanddocilesubjectwholearnswhat isprescribed. It is thefulfilmentofSkinner’s dreamof a teachingmachine (Skinner, 1958). To the extent thatwe can knowand specifywhat is best for others to learn, and how they should learn it (and this can certainlybeargued in somesituations), then this approachmaybe justified, indeed perhapsethicallyobligatory.However, theapplicationofsuchanapproachasatech- nocratic imperative, and the lackof trustwhich thatwouldbringwith it,wouldnot onlyclashwithpoliticalandideological ideasofpersonalfreedom,butalsoflyinthe face of the requirements for education as theyhave been set out in the twenty-first century.Forexample, thekeycompetences setoutby theEuropeanCommission in theNewSkillsAgendaforEurope(Kraatz,2017)includelearningtolearn,socialand civiccompetencesandasenseofinitiativeandentrepreneurship.It ishardtoseehow such reflectivecommunication skills and intellectual autonomycanbedeveloped if error isnot allowedor, indeed, encouraged. LAisnot incompatiblewith trust,but trust raisesethicalquestions for thedesign andimplementationofLA.Towhatdegreeshould thefogofeducationbedispersed inordertomonitoredandoptimisestudents’behaviour?Towhatextentisaparticular LAimplementationaconstraintonstudents’personaldevelopment andautonomy? Towhat degree are privacy and trust (of students by lecturers, and of lecturers by managers),necessaryinorderforthemtodevelopasautonomouslearnersandhuman beings?Towhatextentdoesacognitiveengineeringapproachimplyanabandonment of teachers’ responsibility for their learners?These are practical questions forLA, and they all have significant ethical implications. The answerswill be as complex and as socially situated as the arguments around the pedagogywhichLA seeks to support.