It’s an honor to share that my piece in portal has been awarded best article of the year for the journal!
The awarded article, “Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should: Practitioner Perceptions of Learning Analytics Ethics,” appeared in volume 19, number 3 of portal. It was supported in part by an Association for Library and Information Science Education research grant, for which I am grateful. (You can read the grant application here.)
Marianne Ryan, the journal’s editor, has also compiled some comments, which are available in issue 3, volume 20 (or via this preprint). I’m very honored by some of the nice words from the review committee, some of which I will cite below:
Members of the portal Editorial Board called Jones’s essay “a good introduction to the ethical questions surrounding learning analytics” and “an important contribution to the literature.”
Comments from the board consistently noted the timeliness of this topic and Jones’s balanced and thoughtful treatment. One member observed that Jones’s essay “demonstrates, through a literature review, analysis of current practice, a focus on professional ethics for librarians (especially user privacy), and methodologically sound interviews with library practitioners, just how much of an ethical minefield [learning analytics] is for academic libraries.”
Another called the essay “an effective article for me to point to for others to read and join the conversation locally.” Still another said, “This is a conversation that needs to happen.”
I thank the award committee for its time and diligence. The committee’s members were: Diane Dallis-Comentale, Mary Augusta Thomas, and Maribeth Slebodnik.
You can find the article at the journal’s website, at my SSRN profile, or in my OSF repository.
