3 ms·

What are the ethical implications of NOT using student learning data to support student learning? How will this ruling affect the development of adaptive or per

What are the ethical implications of NOT using student learning data to support student learning? How will this ruling affect the development of adaptive or personalized learning systems? How will it, for instance, affect the ability to identify learning gaps at scale based on race or gender? A kid’s world is overloaded with advertising optimization in their games, videos and online experiences. It happens whenever kids don’t announce themselves as kids. I’m worried that this ruling won’t do anything about hyper optimized advertisements but will create meaningful barriers to the data-driven improvement of educational software. Keep in mind that most edtech companies are decades behind other technology companies in their use of user data. That’s because the kids don’t pay, so optimizing their experiences or learning outcomes don’t meaningfully affect the bottom line. In this context, framing the use of student learning data as “surveillance” is very cynical. To give an example, this ruling appears to forbid the use of formative assessment data (patterns of what students know or don’t know) to build adaptive learning systems. If so, that would significantly impair edtech innovation.

workingon 4y ago
Seems like you have the exact opposite take here that I do. Rather than allowing surveillance of kids because we are being surveilled by other companies, maybe make that surveillance harder too? Not to mention that, at least theoretically, you have a choice to interact with the other people surveilling you. Kids have no choice and are forced to go to school and would be under forced surveillance and data harvesting.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  I do have a different take. My experience comes from helping edtech companies with data science. So, I get to see many potentially good things that edtech companies don’t do. I personally think it is ethically imperative to analyze patterns of student performance and motivation within learning software, with the goal of system/software improvement. Why? Because enhancing the efficacy of education at scale is really, really valuable—and I’m not speaking from a finance perspective. In fact, there is very little money to be made by making online education more effective. I don’t agree that using data for continuous product improvement should be called “forced surveillance and data harvesting.” I know there is a real issue with advergaming and “user as product.” This is not what I’m referring to. I’m asking for more nuance.
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    You're free to do whatever research on children's behavior after you get informed opt-in non-coerced consent from the legal representatives of all the participants of the study and approval from a supervising IRB (Institutional Review Board)/REC (Research Ethics Committee), otherwise it should be called "forced surveillance and data harvesting". This is not a new discussion, the research community has long ago established a near-consensus about what are the appropriate ethical boundaries, permissible tradeoffs, and non-negotiable safeguards when studying human subjects, and this goes waaaaay beyond that.
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      Please don’t do the extreme outrage machine. Please listen. Those consensual agreements you speak of specifically include the use of research to support normal educational practices. That’s why conducting research on normal educational practices is one of the few exceptions to the requirements for informed consent in research. That’s because it was understood that there is an ethical trade off —gathering informed consent from kids in education settings is so difficult that they knew requiring consent would prevent the research from occurring. That’s what I’m saying —rather than “black and white” thinking that collecting data from kids is evil, consider the real societal losses from banning research to improve educational practices— including what is now normal online educational practices. This needs nuance. For more information: https://research.virginia.edu/irb-sbs/normal-educational-practice https://research.virginia.edu/irb-sbs/normal-educational-pra...
      - noasaservice 4y ago
        So what you're saying is that an IRB is just 'too onerous' and that getting informed consent (from the children or their guardians) is just too hard? And then you have the audacity to tell us to "don’t do the extreme outrage machine"? Just wow.
        workingon 4y ago
        Yeah with no concerns about the limitations or monetization of the data that the edtech companies are collecting. Data on the habits of children has to be some of the most valuable data in the data-for-sale corporate/black markets.
harrybr 4y ago
As far as I can tell, this doesn't aim to stop the use of student learning data to support student learning. I think it's about the "other stuff", like selling PII to third parties or using it for targeted advertising.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Then that should clarified by the FTC. As you can see from other comments, it appears that some people want to stop the use of student learning data to support student learning. Educational systems fundamentally need to collect data on student learning progress. It is how education functions as a system. Lumping together the unethical (selling PII) and the ethical (continuous improvement) is very problematic.
  - VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
    It's clarified in the actual policy statement [0][PDF]. Particularly: > must not condition participation in any activity on a child disclosing more information than is reasonably necessary for the child to participate in that activity. > are strictly limited in how they can use the personal information they collect from children. For example, operators of ed tech that collect personal information pursuant to school authorization may use such information only to provide the requested online education service. They're not prohibiting the collection of data, they're strictly limiting what can be done with it. I think this is good middle-ground privacy policy in general. [0][PDF] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Policy%20Statement%20of%20the%20Federal%20Trade%20Commission%20on%20Education%20Technology.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Policy%20Statem...
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      > must not condition participation in any activity on a child disclosing more information than is reasonably necessary for the child to participate in that activity That may prevent gathering data about, for instance, their performance on other related skills. > are strictly limited in how they can use the personal information they collect from children. For example, operators of ed tech that collect personal information pursuant to school authorization may use such information only to provide the requested online education service How about using their PII to link data sources together? That might be done for the improvement of related systems, rather than to provide the educational service used by the child. I mean it’s arguable, but this could create a real chilling effect.

workingon 4y ago

Seems like you have the exact opposite take here that I do. Rather than allowing surveillance of kids because we are being surveilled by other companies, maybe make that surveillance harder too? Not to mention that, at least theoretically, you have a choice to interact with the other people surveilling you. Kids have no choice and are forced to go to school and would be under forced surveillance and data harvesting.

dr_dshiv 4y ago
I do have a different take. My experience comes from helping edtech companies with data science. So, I get to see many potentially good things that edtech companies don’t do. I personally think it is ethically imperative to analyze patterns of student performance and motivation within learning software, with the goal of system/software improvement. Why? Because enhancing the efficacy of education at scale is really, really valuable—and I’m not speaking from a finance perspective. In fact, there is very little money to be made by making online education more effective. I don’t agree that using data for continuous product improvement should be called “forced surveillance and data harvesting.” I know there is a real issue with advergaming and “user as product.” This is not what I’m referring to. I’m asking for more nuance.
- PeterisP 4y ago
  You're free to do whatever research on children's behavior after you get informed opt-in non-coerced consent from the legal representatives of all the participants of the study and approval from a supervising IRB (Institutional Review Board)/REC (Research Ethics Committee), otherwise it should be called "forced surveillance and data harvesting". This is not a new discussion, the research community has long ago established a near-consensus about what are the appropriate ethical boundaries, permissible tradeoffs, and non-negotiable safeguards when studying human subjects, and this goes waaaaay beyond that.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    Please don’t do the extreme outrage machine. Please listen. Those consensual agreements you speak of specifically include the use of research to support normal educational practices. That’s why conducting research on normal educational practices is one of the few exceptions to the requirements for informed consent in research. That’s because it was understood that there is an ethical trade off —gathering informed consent from kids in education settings is so difficult that they knew requiring consent would prevent the research from occurring. That’s what I’m saying —rather than “black and white” thinking that collecting data from kids is evil, consider the real societal losses from banning research to improve educational practices— including what is now normal online educational practices. This needs nuance. For more information: https://research.virginia.edu/irb-sbs/normal-educational-practice https://research.virginia.edu/irb-sbs/normal-educational-pra...
    - noasaservice 4y ago
      So what you're saying is that an IRB is just 'too onerous' and that getting informed consent (from the children or their guardians) is just too hard? And then you have the audacity to tell us to "don’t do the extreme outrage machine"? Just wow.
      - workingon 4y ago
        Yeah with no concerns about the limitations or monetization of the data that the edtech companies are collecting. Data on the habits of children has to be some of the most valuable data in the data-for-sale corporate/black markets.

harrybr 4y ago

As far as I can tell, this doesn't aim to stop the use of student learning data to support student learning. I think it's about the "other stuff", like selling PII to third parties or using it for targeted advertising.

dr_dshiv 4y ago
Then that should clarified by the FTC. As you can see from other comments, it appears that some people want to stop the use of student learning data to support student learning. Educational systems fundamentally need to collect data on student learning progress. It is how education functions as a system. Lumping together the unethical (selling PII) and the ethical (continuous improvement) is very problematic.
- VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
  It's clarified in the actual policy statement [0][PDF]. Particularly: > must not condition participation in any activity on a child disclosing more information than is reasonably necessary for the child to participate in that activity. > are strictly limited in how they can use the personal information they collect from children. For example, operators of ed tech that collect personal information pursuant to school authorization may use such information only to provide the requested online education service. They're not prohibiting the collection of data, they're strictly limiting what can be done with it. I think this is good middle-ground privacy policy in general. [0][PDF] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Policy%20Statement%20of%20the%20Federal%20Trade%20Commission%20on%20Education%20Technology.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Policy%20Statem...
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    > must not condition participation in any activity on a child disclosing more information than is reasonably necessary for the child to participate in that activity That may prevent gathering data about, for instance, their performance on other related skills. > are strictly limited in how they can use the personal information they collect from children. For example, operators of ed tech that collect personal information pursuant to school authorization may use such information only to provide the requested online education service How about using their PII to link data sources together? That might be done for the improvement of related systems, rather than to provide the educational service used by the child. I mean it’s arguable, but this could create a real chilling effect.