Conversations on Online Learning - Audrey Watters: "(Student) Data is the New Oil: MOOCs, Metaphor, and Money"

Talk description: Education technology entrepreneurs frequently boast about the great insights about learning they are able to glean, thanks to the "unprecedented amounts" of data they're collecting from their users. Every keystroke. Every click. Every pause and rewind in a video lecture. Every homework submission. Every forum post. The promise of all the data gathering and data mining: better teaching and learning through technology. And perhaps we will see education transformed. But the claims about "big data" and education echo those made by the tech industry in general, and there is incredible investor interest in this story -- in funding data science oriented startups. This presentation will examine "student data as the new oil" -- the metaphor and the money behind education data and learning analytics as seen in MOOCs and other education technologies.
Audrey Watters, a leading freelance writer in the education field and author of the blog Hack Education, will present a talk entitled “(Student) Data is the New Oil: MOOCs, Metaphor, and Money.” The event is free and open to members of the Columbia community with a valid University ID.

October 16, 2013
3 pm to 4 pm
Columbia University Morningside Campus 203 Butler Library