 | Revised Project Plan One of the first actions to emerge from initial correspondence with project supervisor was to re-visit and re-draft the project plan and submit the project proposal to the D.I.T Research Ethics Committee. The first draft of the project plan from year one project needed to be revised as the objective of Ethics approval being granted in the summer had not been achieved, while some other items had unrealistic target dates set against them.These dates where largely down to my unrealistic expectations at the time and unfamiliarity with Ethics approval process. Fortunately for me , my project supervisor was very knowledgeable on the Ethics approval process and was able to advise me as to what documentation I would need to submit. A copy of all the documentation is available here. |
My Mahara days are behind me!!!
| After much thought I finally decided to migrate my ePortfolio from Mahara to Yola. I've experiencing technical problems with the platform from the outset. I managed to overcome most of these issues but I just wasn't satisfied with the interface and functionality of the platform. A more details reflection of this decision is provided here. |
Ethical Procedure
Date: 20th/10/13 - ECAR 2013 and first feedback from RECI received feedback on my first submission to the Research Ethics Committee.They have asked me to clarify a number of points is my submission. The general feedback is that it requires more detail.Particularly around protecting the identify of all participants involved in the study.The feedback has provided me with much to ponder as I look to re-submit again before the next meeting of the R.E.C. Given the sensitive nature of accessing student data its vital for me that I can advise any potential student participant that the research has been approved by the R.E.C. This will , I feel, help put their minds at ease.Reading through the ECAR 2013 report (Dahlstrom, E., Walker, J., & Dziuban, C. 2013), I appreciate why the REC have raised some of these concerns. This report discusses students lukewarm attitude to learning analytics and why they are not overly enthused by it. The perception of learning analytics as an invasion of privacy or “digital big brother” is something I have and encountered in a lot of the literature to date.Students view learning analytics as invasion of their privacy – the idea that their digital footprints are recorded and monitored is a real cause concern for them. I believe that this is partly due to their mis-understandings of it but it clearly does highlight the need to be more open and transparent when tackling this issue.
The benefits need to be highlighted when addressing this issue –
I think researchers\academia need to be more open and transparent when addressing these issues
Emphasis the benefits of any data analysis program – its really about the helping the student not the lecturer.
Sure it might inform the lecturer regarding their course design in LMS but the real aim should be to help this students who might be struggling and for my part I need to emphasis this in the study but also explain the focus is on evaluating the analysis tools within Blackboard.
In re-drafting my second submission to REC , I have taken on some of the guidelines in the literature Particularly from the ECAR report – such as being open, transparent, clear , concise and adhere ethical guidelines and data privacy principles. Below is an example of some of the feedback I submitted as part of the second submission.
Only those students who have given their consent will be included in the reports generated from webcourses. The diagram below displays how these students can be filtered out from webcourses reports. I will only highlight the names of students who give their consent.
In terms of anonymising the data within the reports I will be removing any direct identifiers such as first name, surname,DOB, student numbers, course code and any other data source that can be used to disclose a student’s/lecturers identity. Student engagement within webcourses will be compared to their module and assessment results within webcourses .The direct identifiers such as student numbers , name, DOB will be replaced by random student identifiers such as StudentA, StudentB or alternatively Student1 or Student2. The focus of this study is not the student(s) , the main objective is to evaluate the analytics features within Webcourses
Date: 15th/11/13 – First significant project milestone
Today marked a significant project milestone in the research study as I received Ethical approval for the project from the REC.
This most recent submission marked my second attempt at gaining Ethics approval for the project as my first submission lacked detail.
At my initial meeting with my project supervisor, she commented that the process of submitting documentation to REC really makes you
think about how you are going to approach and carry out your research for the next 9 months.
I now have a clear and detailed project plan for the duration of this study which will guide me through each stage of the project.
I am now in a position in which I can approach some interested to staff to sound out their interest in the study.
Over the next few days I will email users of the Blackboard system using the referral sampling technique to see if they are interested in becoming participants in the study.
