Showing papers by "Ben Williamson published in 2019"

Policy networks, performance metrics and platform markets: Charting the expanding data infrastructure of higher education

Abstract: Digital data are transforming higher education (HE) to be more student‐focused and metrics‐centred. In the UK, capturing detailed data about students has become a government priority, with an emphasis on using student data to measure, compare and assess university performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the governmental and commercial drivers of current large‐scale technological efforts to collect and analyse student data in UK HE. The result is an expanding data infrastructure which includes large‐scale and longitudinal datasets, learning analytics services, student apps, data dashboards and digital learning platforms powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Education data scientists have built positive pedagogic cases for student data analysis, learning analytics and AI. The politicization and commercialization of the wider HE data infrastructure is translating them into performance metrics in an increasingly market‐driven sector, raising the need for policy frameworks for ethical, pedagogically valuable uses of student data in HE. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic Learning analytics, education data science and artificial intelligence are opening up new ways of collecting and analysing student data in higher education.UK government policies emphasize the use of student data for improvements to teaching and learning.What this paper adds A conceptual framework from "infrastructure studies" demonstrates how political objectives and commercial aims are fused to HE data systems, with data infrastructure becoming a key tool of government reform.A critical infrastructure analysis shows that student data processing technologies are being developed and deployed to measure university performance through student data.Implications for practice and/or policy Educators and managers in universities need to prepare robust institutional frameworks to govern their use of student data.Learning analytics practitioners, data scientists, learning scientists and social science researchers need to collaborate with the policy community and education technology developers on new policy frameworks to challenge narrow uses of student data as performance metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New research problems and agendas in learning, media and technology: the editors’ wishlist

Abstract: Editing a journal is both a practical undertaking and a potentially agenda-setting one. As editors, our practical responsibility is to help manage an important stage in the research publication pro...

Objectivity as standardization in data-scientific education policy, technology and governance

Abstract: New data-driven technologies appear to promise a new era of accuracy and objectivity in scientifically-informed educational policy and governance. The data-scientific objectivity sought by educatio...

Brain data: Scanning, scraping and sculpting the plastic learning brain through neurotechnology

Abstract: Neurotechnology is an advancing field of research and development with significant implications for education. As ‘postdigital’ hybrids of biological and informational codes, novel neurotechnologies combine neuroscience insights into the human brain with advanced technical development in brain imaging, brain-computer interfaces, neurofeedback platforms, brain stimulation and other neuroenhancement applications. Merging neurobiological knowledge about human life with computational technologies, neurotechnology exemplifies how postdigital science will play a significant role in societies and education in decades to come. As neurotechnology developments are being extended to education, they present potential for businesses and governments to enact new techniques of ‘neurogovernance’ by ‘scanning’ the brain, ‘scraping’ it for data and then ‘sculpting’ the brain toward particular capacities. The aim of this article is to critically review neurotechnology developments and implications for education. It examines the purposes to which neurotechnology development is being put in education, interrogating the commercial and governmental objectives associated with it and the neuroscientific concepts and expertise that underpin it. Finally, the article raises significant ethical and governance issues related to neurotechnology development and postdigital science that require concerted attention from education researchers.

Education recoded: policy mobilities in the international 'learning to code' agenda

Abstract: Education policy increasingly takes place across borders and sectors, involving a variety of both human and nonhuman actors. This comparative policy paper traces the ‘policy mobilities,’ ‘fast policy’ processes and distributed ‘policy assemblages’ that have led to the introduction of new computer programming practices into schools and curricula in England, Sweden and Australia. Across the three contexts, government advisors and ministers, venture capital firms, think tanks and philanthropic foundations, non-profit organizations and commercial companies alike have promoted computer programming in schools according to a variety of purposes, aspirations, and commitments. This paper maps and traces the evolution of the organizational networks in each country in order to provide a comparative analysis of computing in schools as an exemplar of accelerated, transnationalizing policy mobility. The analysis demonstrates how computing in schools policy has been assembled through considerable effort to creat...

The datafication of primary and early years education: playing with numbers

Abstract: Data have become the most significant and contentious resources for contemporary education policy and governance. Although a significant body of research has illuminated the educational data work o...

New power networks in educational technology

Abstract: The figure of the network has featured prominently in research on education, media and technology in recent years. In movements like ‘networked learning’ and ‘connected learning’, the network opens...

Biosocial education: the social and biological entanglements of learning

Abstract: Reviewed by Bob Lingard and Ben WilliamsonBiosocial Education is a challenging, indeed demanding, yet very informative book, co-authored collaboratively by critical sociologist of education Deborah...