Building trust for our digital futures

Introduction

In a world where new data infrastructures created by remote proctoring lead to ‘new social and political relationships ‘ Bruun et al. (2020). It could be argued that the over-reliance on the management of sensitive data externally, within unseen data exchanges, exposes institutions like higher education to all manner of issues around trust and privacy.

Bruun et al. (2020) is quite scathing in stating that this ambiguity in technologies and complex trust relationships still does not offer to ‘protect citizens’ sensitive data, then which institutions can be held accountable – and how?’ (Bruun et al.,2020 p.17)

Question: Does your institution have policies specifically dealing with digital privacy?

Please spend (15mins) writing your response using Padlet.

Current research

A fair amount of academic research has been spent recently looking at how neo-liberalistic ideals are becoming more entrenched in the fabric of the education system in England. How these ed-tech technologies are integrated and managed is critical for institutions post-pandemic. As Bayne and Gallagher (2021) prophesize, the future may be bleak if an over-reliance on data-driven systems such as AI lead to an ‘unbundling in higher education’ p.610, so much so that Bayne and Gallagher (2021) predicts the;

“acceleration of our trajectory toward a highly technologised future for universities which is dependent on for-profit ed-tech and driven by the ideological convergence of datafication and marketisation”

(Bayne & Gallagher,2021, p.609)

Moving forward

So, how can we who work in the sector get involved with these new data infrastructures to make a change towards moving away from technical solutionism, which may endanger trust?

Bayne, S. et al. (2020) stresses the ‘importance of distinguishing them from untrusting practices of transparency and surveillance’ which in turn require ‘action on the part of teachers to build and support academic communities in which trust is an underpinning’ (Bayne, S. et al.,2020 p. 108)

Activity 1

Please read this interesting article that talks about how to build online academic communities. (15mins)

Surveillance technologies and complex affiliations in edTech markets

It would seem that there is a significant challenge when looking at the inroads that the Ed Tech market has made post-pandemic. Surveillance technologies have become embedded within higher education that they become harder to distinguish amongst other systems such as the LMS. Thus, it becomes difficult to manage trust relationships, especially between these ‘third-party products‘ and ‘fourth-party partnerships’. These complex affiliations that Caines & Silverman (2021) explain, users can view as neither desirable nor neutral.

Please read Caines & Silverman’s article here to understand more about the ‘third-party products‘ and ‘fourth-party partnerships’.

Some research has advocated for a science and technology studies (STS) approach to assessing this technology which would have a place to temper and reframe “technological gigantism” (Johnston, 2018, cited Weinberg 1964, p.628), which would provide more social awareness to the use of technology.

I am personally an advocate for (STS) approach for science and technology studies (STS) which looks at the influence of strategic leadership, organizational learning, organizational infrastructure, knowledge culture and technological infrastructure when looking at data practices and adoption.

Please read Who Will Watch the Watchmen? The Ethico-political Arrangements of Algorithmic Proctoring for Academic Integrity (Henry & Oliver, 2022). This article provides useful examples of an STS perspective in relation to proctoring technologies and their adoption.

If you think back to the previous section where we address the social impacts on students, teachers & institutions there is evidence that there is a place for this approach.

Question: What do you think, do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Please comment on the Padlet

This is the end of this section. Please follow the link to the reflections page.

References

Bayne, S. and Gallagher, M. (2021) ‘Near Future Teaching: Practice, policy and digital education futures’, Policy Futures in Education, 19(5), pp. 607–625. doi: 10.1177/14782103211026446.

Bruun, M.H., Andersen, A.O. and Mannov, A. (2020) ‘Infrastructures of trust and distrust: The politics and ethics of emerging cryptographic technologies’, Anthropology Today, 36(2), pp. 13–17. doi:10.1111/1467-8322.12562.

Caines, A & Silverman, S 2021. Back Doors, Trap Doors, and Fourth-Party Deals: How You End up with Harmful Academic Surveillance Technology on Your Campus without Even Knowing ‘, The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, Issue. 20 https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/back-doors-trap-doors-and-fourth-party-deals-how-you-end-up-with-harmful-academic-surveillance-technology-on-your-campus-without-even-knowing/

Henry, J.V., Oliver, M. Who Will Watch the Watchmen? The Ethico-political Arrangements of Algorithmic Proctoring for Academic Integrity. Postdigit Sci Educ 4, 330–353 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00273-1

Johnston, SF (2018) Alvin Weinberg and the promotion of the technological fix. Technology and Culture 59(3): 620–651.http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/134435/1/134435.pdf

McLaughlin, C. (2019, 29th April) Building online academic communities. Teaching Matters Blog. https://www.teaching-matters-blog.ed.ac.uk/building-online-academic-communities/

Digital Futures for Education by s1064867 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Mar 24, 2022