The latest in my ongoing series of conference “Mega Posts,” this one contains links to all my posts for the sessions I attended at the 2017 EDUCAUSE conference in Philadelphia. The reason I take such extensive notes and then publish them online is because I’m here on the state’s dime; this ain’t no vacation! Additionally, others may benefit in some small way from my conference experience. It represents a very small slice of what was actually available at EDU17; hopefully you’ll find it useful.
One of my priorities this time around was to learn as much as I could about student privacy and the use of student data. There’s a ton of talk about big data and predictive analytics, and some of the hype is actually justified (you have no idea how much it hurts me to admit that…I can’t stand vendor hype). That said, I find the comparative lack of conversation about ethics and legal considerations concerning. Talk about “student success” is like talk about “the American Dream.” Every campus is for it, but few campus leaders can clearly articulate it in an easily understandable way.
It’s a happy coincidence that a couple weeks ago my boss (VP of Student Affairs) asked me to do some research on online FERPA training. Enter my first pre-conference session, “Student Privacy Boot Camp.” This was, all on it’s own, worth the price of the entire conference to me. I had the privilege of getting educated by the Director of Student Privacy Policy from the US Department of Education. How cool is that?
Anyway, please enjoy these posts and share responsibly with your colleagues. See y’all next year!
Tuesday, October 31
These were pre-conference sessions, and they were both excellent. Next time you come to EDUCAUSE, I highly recommend attending a pre-conference session that piques your interest. I don’t know what the vetting/selection process looks like, but I’ve found that speakers are uniformly very good.
Wednesday, November 1
- Student Affairs Constituency Group (I’m CG chair, and I co-led this session with Leslie Dare from NCSU, so unfortunately I took no notes from this session)
- Digital Literacy: The State of the Art
- A Researcher, an Advisor, and a Marketer Walk Into a Predictive Analytics Tool
Thursday, November 2
- Is Cloud Identity Ready for Higher Education?
- Who Is Doing Our Data Laundry?
- Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
