Creepy Analytics and Learner Data Rights

This paper argues that there is a legitimate distrust of ‘creepy’ analytics that misuse surveillance technologies and that a Charter of Learner Data Rights would be a strong foundation on which to build analytic technologies that are open, personalised, portable, adaptive and engaging for learners.

The techno-utopian dream of big data is in constant peril of succumbing to pervasive surveillance and consequently perpetrating privacy intrusion, stalking, criminal conduct and other forms of ‘creepy’ behaviour. While the term ‘creepy’ may not be scientific, it is a very apt and concise description for the feeling of unease that some new technologies provoke in learners and teachers. The ‘creepy treehouse’ syndrome describes inauthentic learning spaces that try to beckon students into online spaces by pretending to be genuine social networks (McBride, 2008). Creepy analytics, then, carry with them a sometimes hard-to-define, unsettling undercurrent below vendor claims of greater engagement and better retention outcomes.

Reading and Critical Thinking

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