Welcome to Part 2 of our two-part Special Issue on “e-Learners and Their Data.” Part 1 of the Special Issue (“Conceptual, Research, and Exploratory Perspectives”) set the background for our topic with a series of conceptual and empirically based contributions depicting major issues surrounding the creation, use, ownership, and privacy of online learner data. In Part 2, we narrow our focus to examine issues surrounding the e-learner’s data in a series of specific online contexts. Beginning with an in-depth discussion focused on the ownership of digital artifacts (Dennen), we move on to examine digital learner data in organizational workplaces (Giacumo & Breman), professional development (O’Brian), community colleges (Travers), and teacher preparation settings (Percell). Thus, Part 2 of our QRDE Special Issue builds upon, and should be explored within the context of, Part 1 (QRDE, Vol. 17, Issue 3). Part 2 certainly stands on its own, but its utility is maximized after a careful examination of the conceptual and research-based content contained in Part 1.
As discussed in Part 1 of the Special Issue, the nature and characteristics of the issues surrounding digital data in e-learning settings are not only challenging, but often contested (Amirault, 2015; Amirault & Visser, 2016). We say challenging because of the complexity of the issues involved (does an individual’s textual posts to an online discussion forum, for example, carry with them an implicit relinquishing of full ownership of that content, or is copyright protection in force on the posted text, even if not explicitly invoked by the writer?). We say contested because there are numerous and divergent stakeholder groups surrounding digital data in e-learning, including not just learners, but also instructors, educational institutions, creators of learning management systems, cloud-based companies, et cetera, each with a unique perspective on these questions, and consequently bringing with them agendas that do not naturally align. In fact, we have argued that it is the specific nature of today’s technological change that is at the root of this complexity, the amplification of its concomitant issues and their attendant inner “tensions,” the growing contradictions between users and stakeholder groups, and the dilemmas arising between digital technology and its use by humans in the educational setting. In this so-called “Second Machine Age” (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014), we find advanced digital technology seemingly running ahead of most individuals’ (or organizations’) ability to keep pace, leaving in its wake a series of complex problems that are stubbornly resistant to solutions agreeable to all involved parties.
The issue of “digital data in e-learning” extends far beyond that of the mere posting of a single student’s online forum text. What is at stake may well come to define many of the legal, monetary, privacy, and ownership factors surrounding online education for the next century. While it is true that higher education has begun to embrace online education to a much greater extent than it has in previous years, unfortunately this shift in delivery modality does not imply a greater awareness and engagement with these issues. There remains today a broad lack of awareness surrounding the issues raised by digital data in elearning, and therefore, by extension, an inferred diminishing by the broader educational community of the size and importance of the stakes involved. Even experienced online specialists may have difficulty fully grasping the magnitude of these issues. Complicating matters is that even online specialists often do not speak with a common voice on the core issues surrounding e-learner data. We, the editors of this Special Issue, have been surprised to discover the extent to which some experienced online educators have often shied away from examining the critical and admittedly thorny issues surrounding digital data in e-learning (e.g., ownership, privacy, data storage, monetization of information, accessibility, etc.). This lack of attention is likely the byproduct of enduring traditional assumptions surrounding student work in today’s digital online setting, assumptions that should no longer be taken for granted as settled fact in a digital technology setting.
In all learning settings, there is a natural process that occurs as part of the instructional experience. First, ideas become content, then content becomes information. (And when that information is taken into the mind of the learner, it becomes human knowledge.) But in today’s technology-centric online education setting, there is an additional step that takes place, one that has never before played a part in the history of education, representing a significant transformation within our field: information, traditionally the “end point” of the instructional chain, is transformed into digital data. And it is this transmutation—the creation of digital data as a by-product of learning—that is at the very core of an entire series of new and unique challenges which educators have traditionally never had to consider, including ownership, access, privacy, security, monetization of data, citation rights, physical location of data storage, and many others. Said another way, perhaps in a manner that a knowledge management specialist might appreciate, digital data are neither knowledge, nor human information, nor content: they are a unique, technology-based entity that brings with them an entire series of truly distinctive, and sometimes, seemingly intractable, issues.
Consider, for example, a situation in which an e-learner creates a customized video for a class assignment and uploads the video to the course learning management system. Who owns the video? Does the e-learner retain sole right of ownership, or does the company on whose servers the video resides own the video? (Remember, like all other digital data, a video is just a string of “ 1s” and “0s” that make up a computer file). Do the e-learner and the company share in ownership? What about access to that video? Who has the rights to define who can and cannot access the video, perhaps when an external entity links to that video? (Privacy advocates would probably have something very different to say about this than would the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.) This example is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the complex and intertwined issues surrounding digital data and the e-learner, because the online learning setting is awash with digital data. More accurately stated, the online setting is composed exclusively of digital data. Recognizing this single fact is a doorway to engagement with the many issues that come into play when a learner chooses to study online.
So, with that brief introduction to some of the issues surrounding the e-learner’s digital data, we welcome you to Part 2 of our Special Issue. Rather than cede the answers to these issues to others through simple neglect, it is our contention that the distance education and e-learning community must become actively involved in helping establish the shape of our educational future. We hope that the expert insights represented by our panel of authors will help you think more deeply, actively, and purposefully about digital data and the elearner. We also hope that this QRDE Special Issue will be but the start of a much larger conversation as our discipline helps define how future online education systems both respects and protects those who interact within them.
