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That's a super uncharitable interpretation of the GP's argument. Privacy is a spectrum. By your "logic", should students' entire identities be concealed from e

That's a super uncharitable interpretation of the GP's argument. Privacy is a spectrum. By your "logic", should students' entire identities be concealed from education personnel? Of course not. That's just as ridiculous as what you proposed.

edflsafoiewq 7y ago
On the contrary, it's a concise rejection of the worldview that privacy means privacy from others, not privacy from me, and that students are interchangeable units subject not to any consideration of ethics but only performance.
- zbentley 7y ago
  Where is that worldview evidenced in the post you were responding to? The poster seemed extremely cognizant of privacy concerns, and was defending a limited collection of specific data under very narrow circumstances for similarly delimited purposes. Put another way, saying "I think some specific data collection is ethical" is not the same as saying "all data collection I do is ethical, others may not be ethical". They also seemed to implicitly reject the students-are-interchangeable idea: the whole point of gathering this data is to determine if students (as individuals, classes, or entire schools) are struggling or in need of help. That's the opposite of interchangeable; that's finding suffering outliers. I'm harping on it 'cause I think I may be closer to your position on this issue than I am to the original poster's, but ... you're making extremist straw men, talking about feeding trays, and all but reciting the lyrics from the Pink Floyd song. I think that's making pro-privacy positions look bad. EDIT also what about my first point: is any data collection on students ethical? Names? Addresses? Test results? Or should teachers only operate behind double-blind, voice-and-handwriting-obfuscated screens from their students? See? I can make straw men, too.
  - edflsafoiewq 7y ago
    The OP's main concern about privacy was that "third parties" might get the data. There is no recognition of the fact that a student might deserve or expect privacy from the school, only from some nebulous Other who is certain not to treat it with the great respect sure to be afforded it by the Benevolent and Definitely Not-For-Profit university. There is no question of whether this totalizing monitoring of a life is an affront to dignity or whether it normalizes authoritarian power structures, only that it is "extremely useful", that is, it subjects pure quantities to optimization. There is already a lower bound on the level of acceptable data collection set by normal human interaction. There does not however appear to be any upper bound whatsoever suggested by the argument in the OP. As long as the data is not sold and it continues to be useful (ie. the Mathusian race has not yet reached the bottom), no aspect of human life appears to be too sacred to be put into into the optimizer. (I am not wott, in case you did not notice.)
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      That fact that it's useful doesn't mean there isn't a human face to it. Look at the words I use. I don't say "optimizing outcomes" or some other dehumanizing turn of phrase. When I said it was "extremely useful", I said that in the context of "helping students be more successful" To interpret my words here as "quantities to optimization" is to impose your own views on these practices as a whole instead of to the specific example I spoke of, which does not do so. If you look at one of my other comments, we spent years engaging with students, administrators, and faculty before we put into place initiatives that utilize this sort of data. As for recognizing the fact that students might expect or deserve privacy, and the affront to dignity, etc., I was quite clear that we are as transparent an upfront as we can be about this, and students have the ability to tell us "no". Beyond that, the concept of "affront to dignity" on the matter is a personal opinion on the topic, not an axiomatic ethical marker. Similarly "expectation of privacy" is not an unmovable value. My school, in part because of a years-long careful deliberation on the topic, was behind the times in this area. As a result, I cannot tell you how many times students speak to advisors and are actually frustrated that the advisor does not know some of these things about the student, that the advisor has to ask if the student has been attending classes, what their midterm grade is, etc. The students expect us to have all of this data at our fingertips because they expect a seamless, friction-less level of service. Maybe you'd say "that's just because they're used to so many organizations collecting data," and sure, you'd be right (my apologies if the the words I put in your mouth aren't one's you'd say or agree with) But here's the thing: If it's what they expect, what they want, and done responsibly, what is the problem? To contradict the students' attitudes puts you in a position of telling other people that what they want is wrong, and that they should want other things that you think are best for them. Again, my apologies if that doesn't correspond with your own ideas. It is, however, not an uncommon stance, so I think the point still stands.
      - DreamScatter 7y ago
        I don't expect a university advisor to have surveillance data on me, I expect them to be busy with their own work, and that I can come to them for assistance when I need. It's up to the student to communicate the situation.. this should be a human interaction and not automated.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  It's a concise reduction to the absurd that doesn't leave room for conversation. It's a flat statement of "your wrong" that adds nothing to the conversation, with the subtext of "I'm too lazy to actually put together an argument with a claim and a few premises and a bit of explanation to flesh things out". It's the opposite of constructive. It's combative and inflammatory. HN, unlike many other venues for discussion, is a halfway decent community precisely because such comments are in the minority and tend to be quickly downvoted.
mirimir 7y ago
Arguably, yes. As covered in Stephenson's Dodge. Students are fully anonymized, in meatspace as well as in data. So there's no possibility that anything except performance affects assessment.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  Stephenson managed to present both a Utopian and Dystopian view of the future at the same time... I'm not sure his work there is very instructive in this matter. But the thing is, factors other than quantifiable performance do impact assessment. As just one small example, from what I have seen in analyzing the data, the best performing students at some of the worst inner city schools tend not to be nearly as prepared for college as comparable students from better school districts. In short, there quantifiable performance, anonymous from further detail and context, would not accurately predict their academic performance. At the same time, these students typically have overcome many more obstacles to get to where they are, and while they do not always get the same grades, their determination often sees them through to the end where their counterparts may not. Context matters, and the more context you get, the less anonymous things become. That's the problem with either extremist view of total open "privacy is dead" views or total privacy maximism. They seek to avoid the hard work of dealing with the ambiguity in favor of black/white views. Because it is hard work. It involves messy questions. Do we save students hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of their lives by tracking details of course interactions and systems usages? A noble goal, put that way it's hard to say no. But what if the student doesn't want it? Do we give up on it completely? What if we can balance it somehow with informed consent, is that sufficient? If not, is there something we can do that doesn't sacrifice things that are beneficial for students but also allows each person to fully control their data footprint? If we go ahead with any of this, what further monitoring might we then justify? Is it a slippery slope or do we have checks & balances in place to make sure data capture & usage doesn't leap ahead of carefully considered policy & consequences? None of the above are easy. You can ignore them all if you choose a black or white view of things. But either way you give up quite a bit, and whether you choose black or whether you choose white, society will still exist in unending shades of gray.
  - 7y ago

edflsafoiewq 7y ago

On the contrary, it's a concise rejection of the worldview that privacy means privacy from others, not privacy from me, and that students are interchangeable units subject not to any consideration of ethics but only performance.

zbentley 7y ago
Where is that worldview evidenced in the post you were responding to? The poster seemed extremely cognizant of privacy concerns, and was defending a limited collection of specific data under very narrow circumstances for similarly delimited purposes. Put another way, saying "I think some specific data collection is ethical" is not the same as saying "all data collection I do is ethical, others may not be ethical". They also seemed to implicitly reject the students-are-interchangeable idea: the whole point of gathering this data is to determine if students (as individuals, classes, or entire schools) are struggling or in need of help. That's the opposite of interchangeable; that's finding suffering outliers. I'm harping on it 'cause I think I may be closer to your position on this issue than I am to the original poster's, but ... you're making extremist straw men, talking about feeding trays, and all but reciting the lyrics from the Pink Floyd song. I think that's making pro-privacy positions look bad. EDIT also what about my first point: is any data collection on students ethical? Names? Addresses? Test results? Or should teachers only operate behind double-blind, voice-and-handwriting-obfuscated screens from their students? See? I can make straw men, too.
- edflsafoiewq 7y ago
  The OP's main concern about privacy was that "third parties" might get the data. There is no recognition of the fact that a student might deserve or expect privacy from the school, only from some nebulous Other who is certain not to treat it with the great respect sure to be afforded it by the Benevolent and Definitely Not-For-Profit university. There is no question of whether this totalizing monitoring of a life is an affront to dignity or whether it normalizes authoritarian power structures, only that it is "extremely useful", that is, it subjects pure quantities to optimization. There is already a lower bound on the level of acceptable data collection set by normal human interaction. There does not however appear to be any upper bound whatsoever suggested by the argument in the OP. As long as the data is not sold and it continues to be useful (ie. the Mathusian race has not yet reached the bottom), no aspect of human life appears to be too sacred to be put into into the optimizer. (I am not wott, in case you did not notice.)
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    That fact that it's useful doesn't mean there isn't a human face to it. Look at the words I use. I don't say "optimizing outcomes" or some other dehumanizing turn of phrase. When I said it was "extremely useful", I said that in the context of "helping students be more successful" To interpret my words here as "quantities to optimization" is to impose your own views on these practices as a whole instead of to the specific example I spoke of, which does not do so. If you look at one of my other comments, we spent years engaging with students, administrators, and faculty before we put into place initiatives that utilize this sort of data. As for recognizing the fact that students might expect or deserve privacy, and the affront to dignity, etc., I was quite clear that we are as transparent an upfront as we can be about this, and students have the ability to tell us "no". Beyond that, the concept of "affront to dignity" on the matter is a personal opinion on the topic, not an axiomatic ethical marker. Similarly "expectation of privacy" is not an unmovable value. My school, in part because of a years-long careful deliberation on the topic, was behind the times in this area. As a result, I cannot tell you how many times students speak to advisors and are actually frustrated that the advisor does not know some of these things about the student, that the advisor has to ask if the student has been attending classes, what their midterm grade is, etc. The students expect us to have all of this data at our fingertips because they expect a seamless, friction-less level of service. Maybe you'd say "that's just because they're used to so many organizations collecting data," and sure, you'd be right (my apologies if the the words I put in your mouth aren't one's you'd say or agree with) But here's the thing: If it's what they expect, what they want, and done responsibly, what is the problem? To contradict the students' attitudes puts you in a position of telling other people that what they want is wrong, and that they should want other things that you think are best for them. Again, my apologies if that doesn't correspond with your own ideas. It is, however, not an uncommon stance, so I think the point still stands.
    - DreamScatter 7y ago
      I don't expect a university advisor to have surveillance data on me, I expect them to be busy with their own work, and that I can come to them for assistance when I need. It's up to the student to communicate the situation.. this should be a human interaction and not automated.
ineedasername 7y ago
It's a concise reduction to the absurd that doesn't leave room for conversation. It's a flat statement of "your wrong" that adds nothing to the conversation, with the subtext of "I'm too lazy to actually put together an argument with a claim and a few premises and a bit of explanation to flesh things out". It's the opposite of constructive. It's combative and inflammatory. HN, unlike many other venues for discussion, is a halfway decent community precisely because such comments are in the minority and tend to be quickly downvoted.

mirimir 7y ago

Arguably, yes. As covered in Stephenson's Dodge. Students are fully anonymized, in meatspace as well as in data. So there's no possibility that anything except performance affects assessment.

ineedasername 7y ago
Stephenson managed to present both a Utopian and Dystopian view of the future at the same time... I'm not sure his work there is very instructive in this matter. But the thing is, factors other than quantifiable performance do impact assessment. As just one small example, from what I have seen in analyzing the data, the best performing students at some of the worst inner city schools tend not to be nearly as prepared for college as comparable students from better school districts. In short, there quantifiable performance, anonymous from further detail and context, would not accurately predict their academic performance. At the same time, these students typically have overcome many more obstacles to get to where they are, and while they do not always get the same grades, their determination often sees them through to the end where their counterparts may not. Context matters, and the more context you get, the less anonymous things become. That's the problem with either extremist view of total open "privacy is dead" views or total privacy maximism. They seek to avoid the hard work of dealing with the ambiguity in favor of black/white views. Because it is hard work. It involves messy questions. Do we save students hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of their lives by tracking details of course interactions and systems usages? A noble goal, put that way it's hard to say no. But what if the student doesn't want it? Do we give up on it completely? What if we can balance it somehow with informed consent, is that sufficient? If not, is there something we can do that doesn't sacrifice things that are beneficial for students but also allows each person to fully control their data footprint? If we go ahead with any of this, what further monitoring might we then justify? Is it a slippery slope or do we have checks & balances in place to make sure data capture & usage doesn't leap ahead of carefully considered policy & consequences? None of the above are easy. You can ignore them all if you choose a black or white view of things. But either way you give up quite a bit, and whether you choose black or whether you choose white, society will still exist in unending shades of gray.
- 7y ago