An Ethical Vision of Learning Analytics Individuals VS Community #LSAC2019

The Learning & Student Analytics Conference (LSAC) 2019 aims at bringing together researchers from a number of disciplines (e.g. education, artificial intelligence, computer science, management, psychology, ergonomics, economics, IT security, data governance…), practitioners, students, policy makers and companies to share and discuss the latest research insights related to Learning Analytics. The conference further provides a platform for stakeholders to engage in critical conversations about current trends and policy requirements.

After two editions in the Netherlands, the 2019 edition of the conference moves to France and is organized at Loria, Université de Lorraine. This year the conference program will give particular attention to the crucial question of equity and ethics in higher education and will focus on individuals versus communities. Therefore, academics and practitioners alike, who are interested in such topics should consider submitting an abstract and attending this event.

The conference aims at stimulating discussion on these timely topics to discuss Learning Analytics applications aiming to visualise learning activities, access learning behaviour, predict student performance, individualize learning, evaluate social learning and improve learning materials and tools. The conference is structured around three tracks :

• Academic research (theory, data, methods, assessment)
• Policy debates
• Practitioner sessions

One of the conference topics is ethics. Indeed, because of the impact of its introduction into the educational environment, the sensitivity of the data on which it is based and the algorithms it uses, the LA do not escape from the ethic and moral issues.

Paul Ricoeur writes this : "It is by convention that I will reserve the term of "ethics" for the purpose of a life accomplished under the sign of the actions considered good, and that of "moral" for the obligatory side, marked by norms, obligations, prohibitions characterized by both a requirement of universality and an effect of constraint. "

Ethics by design is a general approach (found in the field of human organizations, such as digital design and specially in AI based approach) and which aims to answer globally issues related to both ethic and legal.

The following topics are also welcome :

• Individuals versus communities : What is a community ? What communities does education meet? What characterises an individual in his community ?
• From individuals to communities : What can an individual bring to his community ?
• From community to individuals : What can we use from the community to help individuals ?
• Dashboards
• Experiments