Digital analytics in professional work and learning

Abstract

In a wide range of fields, professional practice is being transformed by the increasing influence of digital analytics: the massive volumes of big data, and software algorithms that are collecting, comparing and calculating that data to make predictions and even decisions. Researchers in a number of social sciences have been calling attention to the far-reaching and accelerating consequences of these forces, claiming that many professionals, researchers, policymakers and the public are just beginning to realise the enormous potentials and challenges these analytics are producing. Yet, outside of particular areas of research and practice, such as learning analytics, there has been little discussion of this to date in the broader education literature. This article aims to set out some key issues particularly relevant to the understandings of professional practice, knowledge and learning posed by the linkages of big data and software code. It begins by outlining definitions, forms and examples of these analytics, their potentialities and some of the hidden impact, and then presents issues for researchers and educators. It seeks to contribute to and extend debates taking place in certain quarters to a broader professional education and work audience. ARTICLE HISTORY

Ecological Teaching Evaluation vs the Datafication of Quality: Understanding Education with, and Around, Data

“…Our concern is that, as systematized and standardized uses of data hand more power to administrators, accreditors and technologists, teachers' agency is increasingly constrained, as are opportunities for educators to practise and develop judgement. At the same time, opaque, thirdparty software and algorithms remove teachers' ability to see and question how datadriven decisions are made (Edwards and Fenwick 2016). Indeed, from a postdigital perspective, an important step in moving towards ecological evaluation is excavating hidden datafied practices for interrogation, alongside meaningful integration with nondatafied interpretations of quality.…”

Pondering purposes, propelling forwards

“…As a summary of my own observations and reflections offered at the conference plenary, this piece aspires not to develop a formal scholarly argument but to provoke our collective pondering about our research purposes in this field of professional learning and education. The second are a series of what I consider to be governing regimes, exercised through organisational mandates, state policy, professional bodies, and public expectations, which are changing professional responsibility (Fenwick 2016). One is the expanding regime of assessment which requires additional labour and often focuses professional activity on measures of efficiency and visible output.…”

Analytics-enabled teaching as design

“…As universities respond to these forces, it is therefore having a direct effect on what it means to be a teacher in a university. In the context of analytics, the pressures for these progressive change is perceived to be occurring at an even faster and more pervasive pace [7]. As analytics-enabled professional practice is seen to be increasingly embedded in wide-ranging professions, the need to insert a kind of "digital analytics literacy" in curriculum to equip students with the skills required for future jobs.…”

“…Framing teaching as design offers many advantages in facilitating the necessary changes in practice, and, we argue, could be a core component of professional learning offered to teaching staff. Viewing teaching as design also supports a shift from a consideration of 'scalability in large numbers' to that of 'scalability in combined numbers', via a collective en-masse approach: the collective expertise of our teachers could be gathered to affect student engagement and learning Further, the emerging need for digital analytics literacy in shaping future professional practice in wide-ranging disciplines and professions [7] places significant impetus for the need to upskill the educators of future professionals.…”