#EdTech: Critical Issues in Higher Education With Technology  Course Level:  Graduate level course (possibly an upper level undergraduate course). Audience: Students in Instructional Design, Higher Education, Information/Library Science, or other similar programs for administrative or scholarly p...

Canvas, again.

As the world continues to adapt to challenges and shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities are reviewing various ways to…

(2020). The case of Canvas: Longitudinal datafication through learning management systems. Teaching in Higher Education: Vol. 25, The datafication of teaching in Higher Education: critical issues and perspectives, pp. 418-434.

There is increasing concern about “surveillance capitalism,” whereby for-profit companies generate value from data, while individuals are unable to resist (Zubo

Lively debates are breaking out these days about algorithms and how they should be used in education. Among them are concerns over what happens to data ...

The little problem with UBC’s big, expensive new tool Last year, UBC introduced a new learning management system. Canvas by Instructure was rolled out to replace the aging and underperforming Blackboard Connect.

The calculator may violate federal privacy law.

Financial companies often use data on borrowers' higher education to determine access to credit and the price of consumer financial products. And those education data can lead to redlining, a form of discrimination against borrowers who attended community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, or Hispanic-serving institutions. That was the key finding of a new report from the Student Borrower Protection Center, a nonprofit group led by Seth Frotman, the former student loan ombudsman for the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. For example, the group said, borrowers who take out student loans may pay a penalty for attending a community college. "Wells Fargo charges a hypothetical community college borrower an additional $1,134 on a $10,000 loan when compared to a similarly situated borrower enrolled at a four-year college," according to the report. Likewise, borrowers who refinance student loans with a company that uses education data may pay a penalty for having attended an HBCU. "When refinancing with Upstart, a hypothetical Howard University graduate is charged nearly $3,499 more over the life of a five-year loan than a similarly situated [New York University] graduate," the group said. Upstart responded with a statement, saying the company conducts rigorous, regular fair-lending tests across millions of borrowers, in collaboration with the CFPB. "According to the CFPB, Upstart’s AI model increases access to credit across all tested race, ethnicity and gender segments by 23-29 percent while also decreasing average rates by 15-17 percent," Upstart said. "Too many people are unfairly disadvantaged by traditional lending models primarily based on credit score and income, and solving that requires considering more data." The report called on federal and state regulators to enhance oversight of the financial sector's use of education data. "The use of education data in underwriting could charge borrowers more for a loan simply for choosing the most accessible path for pursuing the American Dream," the center said. "Is this what is meant by a mission of ‘innovation’? Access to credit should not simply mean ‘more people getting more loans.’ It is imperative to examine the variance in the cost of those loans. Otherwise, expanded access to credit will not expand equity."

Amid the burgeoning interest in and use of academic and learning analytics through learning management systems (LMS), the implications of big data and…

The intersection of technology, privacy, and freedom in a digital world.

The Society Pages (TSP) is an open-access social science project headquartered in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota

Sacramento State will be the pilot California State University to use a new form of data collection on its students.  Degree Analytics operates through students’ devices that are connected to the school’s wifi in order to track how much time a given student spends in spaces on campus, like the…

The systems highlight how widespread surveillance has increasingly become a fact of life: Students “should have all the rights, responsibilities and privileges that an adult has. So why do we treat them so differently?”

Faced with an ever-shrinking pool of potential applicants, admissions officials are increasingly turning to tracking software to hit enrollment targets.

Tom Nash     made     this request            to Virginia Commonwealth University of              Virginia.

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Admissions.