Higher education institutions are continuing to develop their capacity for learning analytics (LA), which is a sociotechnical data mining and analytic practice. Institutions rarely inform their students about LA practices and there exist significant privacy concerns. Without a clear student voice in the design of LA, institutions put themselves in an ethical grey area. To help fill this gap in practice and add to the growing literature on students' privacy perspectives, this study reports findings from over 100 interviews with undergraduate students at eight United States highereducation institutions. Findings demonstrate that students lacked awareness of educational data mining and analytic practices, as well as the data on which they rely. Students see potential in LA, but they presented nuanced arguments about when and with whom data should be shared; they also expressed why informed consent was valuable and necessary. The study uncovered perspectives on institutional trust that were heretofore unknown, as well as what actions might violate that trust. Institutions must balance their desire to implement LA with their obligation to educate students about their analytic practices and treat them as partners in the design of analytic strategies reliant on student data in order to protect their intellectual privacy.
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to report on how library and information science (LIS) as a field operationalizes the concept of organizational sustainability for managing digital resources, projects and infrastructures such as digital libraries and repositories over time. It introduces a nine dimensional framework for organizational sustainability in the digital cultural heritage community. Design/methodology/approach-Content analysis of publications from three LIS databases (2000-2015). Findings-Comparing the articles to the nine dimension framework shows that most LIS articles discuss technology, financial or management dimensions. Fewer articles describe disaster planning, assessment or policy dimensions. Research limitations/implications-Three LIS databases might not include all relevant journals, conferences, white papers and other materials. The data set also did not include books; library management textbooks might include useful material on organizational sustainability. Claims about the prevalence of themes are subject to methodological limits of content analysis. Practical implications-Organizations that steward digital collections need to be clear about what they mean when they are referring to organizational sustainability so that they can make appropriate decisions for future-proofing their collections. The analysis would also suggest for a greater need to consider the full range of dimensions of organizational sustainability. Originality/value-By introducing a new nine dimensional framework of organizational sustainability the authors hope to promote more and better conversations within the LIS community about organizational sustainability. The authors hope these conversations will lead to productive action and improvements in the arrangements of people and work necessary to keep digital projects and services going over time, given ongoing challenges.
In this paper, the authors address learning analytics and the ways academic libraries are beginning to participate in wider institutional learning analytics initiatives. Since there are moral issues associated with learning analytics, the authors consider how data mining practices run counter to ethical principles in the American Library Association's "Code of Ethics." Specifically, the authors address how learning analytics implicates professional commitments to promote intellectual freedom; protect patron privacy and confidentiality; and balance intellectual property interests between library users, their institution, and content creators and vendors. The authors recommend that librarians should embed their ethical positions in technological designs, practices, and governance mechanisms. "We cannot allow our ethical principles to stand as mere monoliths…. That our values pose ethical dilemmas for us in practice is a good thing and should be welcomed by us: from debating such dilemmas comes strength of mission."
Trapped by faculty apathy and library uncertainty, institutional repositories face a crossroads: adapt or die. The "build it and they will come" proposition has been decisively proven wrong. Citation advantages and preservation have not attracted faculty participants, though current-generation software and services offer faculty little else. Academic librarianship has not supported repositories or their managers. Most libraries consistently under-resource and understaff repositories, further worsening the participation gap. Software and services are wildly out of touch with faculty needs and the realities of repository management. These problems are not insoluble, but they demand serious reconsideration of repository missions, goals, and means.
Objective: This paper describes three different institutional experiences in developing research data management programs and services, challenges/opportunities, and lessons learned.Overview: This paper is based on the Librarian Panel Discussion during the 4th Annual University of Massachusetts and New England Region eScience Symposium. Librarians representing large public and private research universities presented an overview of service models developed at their respective organizations to bring support for data management and eScience to their communities. The approaches described include two library-based, integrated service models and one collaboratively-staffed, center-based service model.
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