Development of an approved learning analytics ethics position

Learning analytics promise significant benefit to online education providers through improved, better-targeted student services. Much has been written about the potential of analytics and how they might be technically implemented, and various ethical considerations are published highlighting the significant potential risk of gathering, manipulating and applying student data to education. Developing an ethical position provides institutions with an opportunity to critically appraise their assumptions and practice however how best to articulate one is far from clear. This case study outlines the development of an ethical framework at Open Polytechnic of New Zealand and demonstrates how international ethics guidelines for learning analytics have shaped practice and informed policy development. Four stages to developing an ethics position in education institutions were followed: 1) examining existing institutional policy, 2) categorising student data, 3) addressing ethics concerns in a structured way and 4) approving an ethics position and extending practice. The paper concludes with suggestions for those developing ethics positions for implementing learning analytics to help towards a successful outcome.