Candace M. Thille, a known researcher at Stanford University, has issued a warning about the use of big data and learning analytics by education companies, specially since adaptive learning is becoming an increasingly important tool in teaching.
“Letting the market alone shape the future of learning analytics would be a mistake. Colleges should be investing in learning analytics in the same way that they invest in maintaining their buildings,” she said in an interview in The Chronicle.
Candace M. Thille argues that colleges should have more control as a way to use data to predict students needs and deliver the right material at the right time. “You don’t outsource your core business process,” she noted. “When companies lead the development of learning software, the decisions those systems make are hidden from professors and colleges.”
Dr. Lorena A Barba, a professor at George Washington University, has invited data scientists to work with learning scientists to contribute to the field of data-driven education.
