Komporozos-Athanasiou, Aris, Jonathan Paylor, and Christopher Mckevitt. ‘Governing Researchers through Public Involvement’. Journal of Social Policy, undefined/ed, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S004727942100012X.

Scientific Imperialism: Exploring the Boundaries of Interdisciplinarity. (n.d.). Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 20 February 2021, from https://www.routledge.com/Scientific-Imperialism-Exploring-the-Boundaries-of-Interdisciplinarity/Maki-Walsh-Pinto/p/book/9780367889074

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The Ethics of Online Research. (2018, August 30). Leeds University Library Blog. https://leedsunilibrary.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/the-ethics-of-online-research/

Like the way unethical people use statistics in general? This should be a concern, especially as government data, long considered the gold standard of data, undergoes attacks that would skew the data toward political ends. (see the census 2020)

Very important to keep in mind. Not only do we realise that re-identification is a risk, but this risk is exacerbated by the increase in “triangulation”. Hence some discussions about Differential Privacy.

Useful reminder. Sounds a bit like “now that we have easier access to data, we have to be particularly careful”. Probably not the first reflex of most researchers before they start sending forms to their IRBs. Important for this to be explicitly designated as a concern, in IRBs.

Again, this is probably a more felicitous wording than “privacy protection”. Sure, it takes as a given that some use of data is desirable. And the preceding section makes it sound like Learning Analytics advocates mostly need ammun… arguments to push their agenda. Still, the notion that we want to advocate for responsible use is more likely to find common ground than this notion that there’s a “data faucet” that should be switched on or off depending on certain stakeholders’ needs. After all, there exists a set of data use practices which are either uncontroversial or, at least, accepted as “par for the course” (no pun intended). For instance, we probably all assume that a registrar should receive the grade data needed to grant degrees and we understand that such data would come from other sources (say, a learning management system or a student information system).

Useful breakdown. Research, predictive models, and recognition are quite distinct from one another and the approaches to data that they imply are quite different. In a way, the “personalized learning” model at the core of the second topic is close to the Big Data attitude (collect all the things and sense will come through eventually) with corresponding ethical problems. Through projects vary greatly, research has a much more solid base in both ethics and epistemology than the kind of Big Data approach used by technocentric outlets. The part about recognition, though, opens the most interesting door. Microcredentials and badges are a part of a broader picture. The data shared in those cases need not be so comprehensive and learners have a lot of agency in the matter. In fact, when then-Ashoka Charles Tsai interviewed Mozilla executive director Mark Surman about badges, the message was quite clear: badges are a way to rethink education as a learner-driven “create your own path” adventure. The contrast between the three models reveals a lot. From the abstract world of research, to the top-down models of Minority Report-style predictive educating, all the way to a form of heutagogy. Lots to chew on.

At least, they’ve become unavoidable in class discussions even tangentially related to social psychology. In intro sociology, they lead to some interesting thoughts about lab vs. field experiments.

Despite some differences, it sounds a bit like the standard by which risks and benefits of research are measured in terms of a given population. Since the troublesome Tuskegee syphilis experiments, it has led to the evaluation of “fair or just distribution of risks and benefits to eligible participants” (WP). The connection may be a little bit strained, especially since Zuckerman is talking about pragmatic issues instead of ethical ones. But there’s some insight in this line of thought, IMHO.