Unresolved Privacy and Ethics Issues Related to Learning Analytics in Higher Education and Academic Librarianship

Learning analytics involve big data collection, analysis processes, and technology that are used in higher education institutes and academic libraries to support student success and perform organizational assessment. Since these processes require the input of personally identifiable student and patron information to be effective, there are major ethical and legal considerations that must be addressed concerning privacy. This article demonstrates that privacy concerns about learning analytics can be mitigated by requiring informed consent from participants, establishing protocols for the collection and management of personally identifiable information, and advocating privacy rights of patrons. By synthesizing and expanding on viewpoints from the literature, this article offers recommendations pertaining to the collection, analysis, and management of patron data that are gathered for the purpose of learning analytics.