Educational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope

Higher education, and more specifically, distance education, is in the midst of a rapidly changing environment. Higher education institutions increasingly rely on the harvesting and analyses of student data to inform key strategic decisions across a wide range of issues, including marketing, enrolm...

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Autores principales:	Paul Prinsloo, Sharon Slade
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Athabasca University Press 2014
Materias:	Distance Education Educational triage Learning Analytics Open Distance learning Special aspects of education LC8-6691
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/e01858aada114f87afc33b15e05f9f43
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:e01858aada114f87afc33b15e05f9f432021-12-02T19:20:30ZEducational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope10.19173/irrodl.v15i4.18811492-3831https://doaj.org/article/e01858aada114f87afc33b15e05f9f432014-08-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1881https://doaj.org/toc/1492-3831 Higher education, and more specifically, distance education, is in the midst of a rapidly changing environment. Higher education institutions increasingly rely on the harvesting and analyses of student data to inform key strategic decisions across a wide range of issues, including marketing, enrolment, curriculum development, the appointment of staff, and student assessment. In the light of persistent concerns regarding student success and retention in distance education contexts, the harvesting and analysis of student data in particular in the emerging field of learning analytics holds much promise. As such the notion of educational triage needs to be interrogated. Educational triage is defined as balancing between the futility or impact of the intervention juxtaposed with the number of students requiring care, the scope of care required, and the resources available for care/interventions. The central question posed by this article is “how do we make moral decisions when resources are (increasingly) limited?” An attempt is made to address this by discussing the use of data to support decisions regarding student support and examining the concept of educational triage. Despite the increase in examples of institutions implementing a triage based approach to student support, there is a serious lack of supporting conceptual and theoretical development, and, more importantly, to consideration of the moral cost of triage in educational settings. This article provides a conceptual framework to realise the potential of educational triage to responsibly and ethically respond to legitimate concerns about the “revolving door” in distance and online learning and the sustainability of higher education, without compromising ‘openness.’ The conceptual framework does not attempt to provide a detailed map, but rather a compass consisting of principles to consider in using learning analytics to classify students according to their perceived risk of failing and the potential of additional support to alleviate this risk. Paul PrinslooSharon SladeAthabasca University PressarticleDistance EducationEducational triageLearning AnalyticsOpen Distance learningSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691ENInternational Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Vol 15, Iss 4 (2014)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Distance Education Educational triage Learning Analytics Open Distance learning Special aspects of education LC8-6691
spellingShingle	Distance Education Educational triage Learning Analytics Open Distance learning Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Paul Prinsloo Sharon Slade Educational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope
description	Higher education, and more specifically, distance education, is in the midst of a rapidly changing environment. Higher education institutions increasingly rely on the harvesting and analyses of student data to inform key strategic decisions across a wide range of issues, including marketing, enrolment, curriculum development, the appointment of staff, and student assessment. In the light of persistent concerns regarding student success and retention in distance education contexts, the harvesting and analysis of student data in particular in the emerging field of learning analytics holds much promise. As such the notion of educational triage needs to be interrogated. Educational triage is defined as balancing between the futility or impact of the intervention juxtaposed with the number of students requiring care, the scope of care required, and the resources available for care/interventions. The central question posed by this article is “how do we make moral decisions when resources are (increasingly) limited?” An attempt is made to address this by discussing the use of data to support decisions regarding student support and examining the concept of educational triage. Despite the increase in examples of institutions implementing a triage based approach to student support, there is a serious lack of supporting conceptual and theoretical development, and, more importantly, to consideration of the moral cost of triage in educational settings. This article provides a conceptual framework to realise the potential of educational triage to responsibly and ethically respond to legitimate concerns about the “revolving door” in distance and online learning and the sustainability of higher education, without compromising ‘openness.’ The conceptual framework does not attempt to provide a detailed map, but rather a compass consisting of principles to consider in using learning analytics to classify students according to their perceived risk of failing and the potential of additional support to alleviate this risk.
format	article
author	Paul Prinsloo Sharon Slade
author_facet	Paul Prinsloo Sharon Slade
author_sort	Paul Prinsloo
title	Educational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope
title_short	Educational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope
title_full	Educational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope
title_fullStr	Educational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope
title_full_unstemmed	Educational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope
title_sort	educational triage in open distance learning: walking a moral tightrope
publisher	Athabasca University Press
publishDate	2014
url	https://doaj.org/article/e01858aada114f87afc33b15e05f9f43
work_keys_str_mv	AT paulprinsloo educationaltriageinopendistancelearningwalkingamoraltightrope AT sharonslade educationaltriageinopendistancelearningwalkingamoraltightrope
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Educational triage in open distance learning: Walking a moral tightrope

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