It might be legitimate to track students without acknowledging this in some circumstances; but, at least under the UK Data Protection Act, you would have to make any data gathered and retained available on request.
And anonymity would adversely affect some of the possible benefits of tracking.
Regards,
Bruce
Bruce Douglas Ingraham, ILTM
Teaching Fellow
Centre for Learning & Quality Enhancement
University of Teesside
Middlesbrough
United Kingdom
tel. 44 (0)1642 384260
fax 44 (0)1642 342544
email [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Chin
Sent: 20 May 2005 08:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Tracking and Ethics
Hi Everyone,
Just catching up with this debate but I've been looking at the tracking of ethics for some of my work. I've already read a couple of papers where the ethics of tracking came up. The work focussed on keeping a track of what students did as this was integral to the research being carried out. If you tell the students this then it automatically affects the results. The papers reported that it was cleared with their ethics committees as long as the information was only used for the research/teaching and learning process and the students were kept anonymous. So you can track the students without telling them but as long as you have good eduacational reasons and keep everything anonymous.
Regards
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of W.F. van Valkenburg
Sent: 19 May 2005 18:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Tracking and Ethics
It works fine on Solaris with Blackboard version 6.2.3.23.
Regards,
Willem
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] Namens Herta Van den Eynde
Verzonden: donderdag 19 mei 2005 18:52
Aan: [log in to unmask]
Onderwerp: Re: Tracking and Ethics
Dag Henk,
It was developed for inhouse usage. We're runing it on Linux with bb 6.2.3.6. I honestly don't know whether it will run on other platforms out of the box. If it doesn't and someone has the know how, feel free to adapt it to meet your requirements.
Kind regards,
Herta
Henk van Rijssen wrote:
> Hi Herta,
>
> will this building block work for Linux, Solaris and Windows?
>
> Henk van Rijssen
> ROC Midden Nederland
>
> At 15:27 19-5-2005, you wrote:
>
>> Gillian,
>>
>> We're not selling it, but if you want to take a look at it, feel free
>> to pick it up at
>> http://perswww.kuleuven.ac.be/~u0039317/bb/bb-course-stats.zip
>>
>> For clarity's sake, this one was written by my colleague Arnoud Wils.
>> This is version 1 of this building block. Feedback is welcomed (our
>> team's e-mail addresses all have the format
>> [log in to unmask]). Arnoud may take requests for
>> enhancement (mainly depending on available time, and whether the
>> enhancement would also be benificial for us).
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Herta
>>
>> G Bishop wrote:
>>
>>> Herta,
>>> You mentioned a building block that will show the percentage of
>>> enrolled students that accessed a given document between any given
>>> days. Is this available for other institutions to use? Thanks &
>>> Regards, Gillian
>>>
>>> On Thu, 19 May 2005 09:47:23 +0100, Herta Van den Eynde
>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Our students, backed by our legal department, asked us to turn off
>>>> statistics.
>>>>
>>>> Their argument roughly comes down to: bb is one of many educational
>>>> tools. If, for whatever reason, a student prefers not to use that
>>>> tool, but at the end of the term, still acquired the requisite
>>>> knowledge, his non-usage of bb should not affect his grade.
>>>> They also fear that a student who clicks around a lot at all odd hours,
>>>> will get better grades just for clicking around a lot.
>>>>
>>>> At the same time, instructors like to know whether all the time
>>>> they spend on building a blackboard course is time well spent.
>>>>
>>>> So we disabled tracking and statistics and one of my colleagues
>>>> wrote a building block for instructors that will show the
>>>> percentage of enrolled students that accessed a given document
>>>> between any given days.
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>
>>>> Herta
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dennis R Bury wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>> I am a newcomer to the list and a new user of Blackboard. I
>>>>> wonder if anyone has a view on the ethics of Tracking. I feel
>>>>> uneasy about having it available and not mentioning that it is to
>>>>> the students. Would anyone offer me their views on this? My
>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>> Dennis R Bury
>>>
>>>
>>> -- Regards,
>>> Gillian
>>> Gillian Bishop, Computer Services,
>>> Aston Business School, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham
>>> B4 7ET
>>> 0121 204 3235
>>> Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client:
>>> http://www.opera.com/mail/
>>
>>
>> --
>> Herta Van den Eynde -=- Toledo system management
>> K.U. Leuven - Ludit -=- phone: +32 (0)16 322 166
>> -=- 50°51'27" N 004°40'39" E
>>
>> "I wish I were two little cats. Then I could play together."
>
>
>
--
Herta Van den Eynde -=- Toledo system management
K.U. Leuven - Ludit -=- phone: +32 (0)16 322 166
-=- 50°51'27" N 004°40'39" E
"I wish I were two little cats. Then I could play together."
|