marklocklear

lms == Learning Management System. One of my ongoing projects is working with Online Student Profile It is an early warning and detection system for students. Its a nice little open source project put on by the folks at CPCC. Part of the functionality of the system is that it allows instructors and counsellors to track and document visits with students. One of the conversations we always run in to when implementing a system that tracks student behaviour is how much do we record, how long do we save it, and who do we make it available to? Should an instructor have access to notes on private visits that another instructor has had with a student? These are not trivial issues and each institution has to make their own decision on how to handle such matters.

Thinking about all this data got me to thinking about Uncle's Google and Facebook, and how they handle our data. I think most of us would agree that on some level we are more than a little unnerved about the depths these companies go to harvest our data, and just what the heck they are doing with it. What if we could do the same thing with our learning management systems. What if...

You're a teacher of a class with 100 students. You have hooked up your mobile phone to your Moodle site and configured the site to send you messages. A background analytics process runs on the Moodle site, constantly monitoring and evaluating live statistics for usage, grades and so on. The software notices that Jimmy Student has not logged on for two weeks, and that his grades have been dropping. As a result, you get a notification on your phone telling you that "Jimmy seems to be having some trouble at the moment, his grades are dropping and he's not been seen much recently. In fact the same thing happened last year at about the same time. His mobile phone number is +94834893849 if you want to give him a call." You click the link and it dials the number.

Pretty cool, huh? But of course the devil is always in the details. As our technology evolves these are issues that our schools, colleges and universities will be forced to address. Of course it could be said that its a nice problem to have. We have always kept records on students, and instructors have always *gossiped* about students. These systems will give us the ability to enforce policy and choose the correct balance of privacy to will best benefit students.