Governance

Senate Learning and Teaching Committee (LTC) and the University's Knowledge Strategy Committee (KSC) have established a review group to scrutinise plans for substantial new learning analytics activities. The group will be able to assist proposers to align their activities with the University's Principles and to meet practical and regulatory issues (for example, regarding data protection and security), and will also assist the University to share good practices in this developing area.

The group consists of:

• Convenor - Assistant Principal Professor Sian Bayne
• A student representative - Vice-President, Education, Students' Association
• The Data Protection Officer - Renate Gertz
• Director of Student Systems and Administration - Lisa Dawson
• Head of Digital Learning Applications and Media, Information Services Group - Anne-Marie Scott
• Chief Information Security Officer - Alistair Fenemore
• A member of academic staff with expertise in research ethics - to be confirmed

Schools, Colleges or support groups planning to develop any of the following categories of learning analytics activities, should ask the group to review the proposals:

• Projects that involve processing and utilising individual students’ learning analytics data in order to provide them with targeted / personalised support;
• Projects that involve third parties in the processing of data for learning analytics purposes;
• Projects involving courses or programmes owned by more than one School;
• Projects involving the processing of personal data of students aged 13 or less
• Any other learning analytics activities that appear likely to create particular challenges or risks.

Proposers should contact Tom Ward (Tom.Ward@ed.ac.uk) to arrange for the group to consider their plans.

Schools have for many years undertaken small-scale analysis of (typically anonymised) data on student engagement and learning for relatively routine quality assurance and enhancement purposes. While it is important that all such activities comply with the relevant legal and regulatory frameworks, it is not necessary to seeking approval from the group for activities of this type unless they fall into the categories set out above.