<p>This paper presents findings from a study of Australian and New Zealand academics (n = 276) that teach tertiary education students. The study aimed to explore participants’ early experiences of learning analytics in a higher education milieu in which data analytics is gaining increasing prominence. Broadly speaking participants were asked about: (1) Their teaching context, (2) Their current student retention activities, (3) Their involvement in, and aspirations for, learning analytics use, (4) Their relationship with their institution around learning analytics. The sampled teaching staff broadly indicated a high level of interest but limited level of substantive involvement in learning analytics projects and capacity building activities. Overall, the intention is to present a critical set of voices that assist in identifying and understanding key issues and draw connections to the broader work being done in the field.</p>

Several studies have been conducted to evaluate the experience and involvement of academics in learning analytics (LA) due to its potential for improving teaching and learning. However, findings often reflect an educational culture which is indicative of the institutional or national context where the study has occurred, resulting in bias regarding LA perspectives. Therefore, this study seeks to compare and contrast the experiences of LA among academics in Australia and Malaysia, with intentions to learn from each other’s experience. Areas of comparison were: (1) academics’ involvement in LA activities; (2) academics’ responses to the institutional capacity in supporting LA; and 3) academics’ concerns about the ethical issues surrounding LA. A survey of 353 Australian and 224 Malaysian academics revealed similarities and differences. It is evident from these results that the context and infrastructure for LA are at different stages of development in both countries. Nevertheless, the results provide an interesting reflection on academics’ needs, institutional understanding, policies, and educational cultural biases in applying LA in teaching and learning in higher education institutions.

Increasingly learning analytics (LA) has begun utilising staff- and student-facing dashboards capturing visualisations to present data to support student success and improve learning and teaching. The use of LA is complex, multifaceted and raises many issues for consideration, including ethical and legal challenges, competing stakeholder views and implementation decisions. It is widely acknowledged that LA development requires input from various stakeholders. This conceptual article explores the LA literature to determine how student perspectives are positioned as dashboards and visualisations are developed. While the sector acknowledges the central role of students, as demonstrated here, much of the literature reflects an academic, teacher-centric or institutional view. This view reflects some of the key ethical concerns related to informed consent and the role of power translating to a somewhat paternalistic approach to students. We suggest that as students are the primary stakeholders – they should be consulted in the development and application of LA. An ethical approach to LA requires that we engage with our students in their learning and the systems and information that support that process rather than assuming we know we know what students want, what their concerns are or how they would like data presented.

This article reports on a study exploring student perspectives on the collection and use of student data for learning analytics. With data collected via a mixed methods approach from 2,051 students across six Australian universities, it provides critical insights from students as a key stakeholder group. Findings indicate that while students are generally comfortable with the use of data to support their learning, they do have concerns particularly in relation to the use of demographic data, location data and data collected from wireless networks, social media and mobile applications. Two key themes emerged related to the need for transparency to support informed consent and personal-professional boundary being critical. This supports findings from other research, which reflects the need for a nuanced approach when providing information to students about the data we collect, including what we are collecting, why and how this is being used. Implications for practice or policy: When implementing the use of dashboards, institutions should ideally include opportunities for students to opt in and out, rather than being set so that students have agency over their data and learning. When undertaking work in relation to learning analytics, staff need to ensure the focus of their work relates to student learning rather than academic research. When institutions and academic staff collect and use student data (regardless of the purpose for doing so), all aspects of these processes need to be transparent to students.

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