Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

In this paper, the authors address learning analytics and the ways academic libraries are beginning to participate in wider institutional learning analytics initiatives. Since there are moral issues associated with learning analytics, the authors consider how data mining practices run counter to ethical principles in the American Library Association’s “Code of Ethics.” Specifically, the authors address how learning analytics implicates professional commitments to promote intellectual freedom; protect patron privacy and confidentiality; and balance intellectual property interests between library users, their institution, and content creators and vendors. The authors recommend that librarians should embed their ethical positions in technological designs, practices, and governance mechanisms.

I’ve read David Lewis’s wide-angle provocations in the past, so when I picked up his new book, Reimagining the Academic Library, I expected my thoughts to be provoked. Seeing that the first chapter was titled “Disruption” and the first paragraph opened with Clayton Christensen made me think I was merely going to be irritated. Luckily, the second paragraph acknowledges the problems with Christensen’s theory and its all-too-frequently shoddy applications, so I carried on. What follows is well worth reading and discussing.