Consent
Have the students given consent to the Institution to use their data for Learning Analytics? As part of the enrolment process in most academic institutions, potential students are providing a lot of personal information about themselves, but what permissions have they provided to the Institution in how that information can be used.
At Chisholm Institute, a lot of information is required on the enrolment form including background information, previous study and demographics. Enrolling students need to acknowledge that they have read and agree to the policies outlined. The first one relates to Chisholm's Privacy Policy.
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| Chisholm Privacy Policy on Enrolment Form |
Enrolling students are required to initial this section to acknowledge that they have read the Privacy Policy.
The second block of information is the National VET Data Privacy Policy.
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National VET Data Privacy Policy from Chisholm's enrolment form
The final privacy policy is the Victorian Government VET Student Enrolment Privacy Notice. This needs to be read and then students will need to acknowledge that they have read and understood the policy.
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| Victorian Government VET Student Enrolment Privacy Notice |
After the various privacy policies, there is a signature area that must be signed by all potential students. There is another signature block towards the end of the form agreeing to the Terms and Conditions of enrolment, which also mentions some use of the data provided.
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| Terms and Conditions of enrolment |
If you read all of the policies, then you would agree that it is pretty open as to what you data can be used for. In the Victorian Government VET Student Enrolment Privacy Notice, under the heading of Use of your data, it states "The Department uses student and training data, including personal information, for a range of VET purposes including administration, monitoring and planning, including between the Department and Student where appropriate. The data may also be subjected to data analytics, which seek to determine the likelihood of certain events occurring (such as program or subject completion), which may be relevant to the services provided to the student."
Does signing the enrolment form indicate consent or is informed consent more important? The consent provided by signing the enrolment form is more implied and the use of data analytics is just mentioned without detailing what that constitutes. If we were to ensure that our students acknowledged informed consent, then we would need to provide more information on what data or learning analytics were going to be performed and their link to students' learning (Lawson et al., 2016; West et al., 2016; West et al., 2020b).
Students are unable to enrol unless they sign all aspects of the enrolment form as most of our students get some form of Government funding, which must be reported to a number of government agencies. Having the consent for the use of learning analytics separately, would allow students to be able to "opt out" if they didn't want to be involved in any learning analytics (Lawson et al., 2016; Prinsloo & Slade, 2017; Rubel & Jones, 2016; Tzimas & Demetriadis, 2021; West et al., 2020b).
Privacy
Legislation
State level Privacy Legislation is covered under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic)
"The PDP Act contains 10 Information Privacy Principles (IPPs) that outline how Victorian public sector organisations must handle your personal information." https://ovic.vic.gov.au/privacy/for-the-public/your-privacy-rights/
Personal information covers almost all of the information that is provided on the enrolment form such as name and address, email address, phone number, religion, race or ethnicity, and financial information.
The 10 Information Privacy Principles include Use and Disclosure, Data Security, Unique Identifiers, and Anonymity.
More information regarding the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) can be found here https://ovic.vic.gov.au/privacy/resources-for-organisations/information-privacy-principles-full-text/
Use of Data
Ethics and privacy is discussed in much of the literature on Learning Analytics. Ethical use of data for Learning Analytics, which includes privacy and equitable use of data, should be a major consideration when implementing a Learning Analytics program (Gedrimiene et al., 2020; Gunn et al., 2017; Ifenthaler et al., 2021; Klose et al., 2020; Lawson et al., 2016; Stephenson et al., 2020; Tzimas & Demetriadis, 2021; West et al., 2020a; West et al., 2020b; West et al., 2016).
Other ethical issues
Lack of knowledge and/or training in using Learning Analytics effectively was mentioned in a number of articles. To interpret the results without bias and apply relevant algorithms requires a level of expertise that seems to be lacking in many Institutions (Corrin & de Barba, 2014; Gunn et al., 2022; Ifenthaler et al., 2021; Stephenson et al., 2022).
Institutions need to ensure that they have clear guidelines, policies and procedures when dealing with Educational Data and Learning Analytics. These should outline the purpose of the Learning Analytics, privacy, ethical use, and security of the data (Gunn et al., 2017; Ifenthaler et al., 2021; Stephenson et al., 2022; West et al., 2016)
There is a danger for the interpretation of Learning Analytics to include some biases when making judgements and acting on them, whether this is on purpose or by accident. This could be alleviated by policies and procedures that clearly outline the methodologies for interpreting the data, professional development of those using the data, and guidelines for the relevant action that will be taken based on the analytics that take place (Lawson et al., 2016; Stephenson et al., 2022; Tzimas & Demetriadis, 2021; West et al., 2020a).
Recommendations
In the article Towards an Inclusive Analysis for Australian Higher Education, there were 9 recommendations that were listed. While many of them came up in other research, seeing them as one list and in an Australian context, I think they are worth mentioning:
- Develop policies and procedures to protect data
- Gain analytical expertise
- Gain equity and ethics expertise
- Provide professional education on LA for staff
- Develop inhouse regulatory structures and professional expertise
- Ensure interventions are tailored and based on facts
- Ensure equity and fairness through regular monitoring and evaluation
- Work towards benchmarking or collective agendas with other universities
- Conduct and facilitate further research
(Stephenson, Harvey & Huang, 2022)
