Simon Buckingham Shum is Professor of Learning Informatics at Australia’s University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Director of the Connected Intelligence Centre (CIC)—an innovation center where students and staff can explore education data science applications. Simon holds a Ph.D from the University of York, and is known for bringing a human-centered approach to analytics and development. He also co-founded the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), which is committed to advancing learning through ethical, educationally sound data science.
In this episode, Simon and I discuss the state of education technology (edtech), privacy, human-centered design in the context of using AI in higher ed, and the numerous technological advancements that are re-shaping the higher level education landscape.
Our conversation covered:
Designing for Analytics
simon.buckinghamshum.net
Simon on LinkedIn
#experiencingdata
Designing for Analytics Podcast
Quotes from Today’s Episode“We are seeing AI products coming out. Some of them are great, and are making a huge difference for learning STEM type subjects— science, tech, engineering, and medicine. But some of them are not getting the balance right.” — Simon
“The trust break-down will come, and has already come in certain situations, when students feel they’re being tracked…” — Simon, on students perceiving BI solutions as surveillance tools instead of beneficial
“Increasingly, it’s great to see so many people asking critical questions about the biases that you can get in training data, and in algorithms as well. We want to ask questions about whether people are trusting this technology. It’s all very well to talk about big data and AI, etc., but ultimately, no one’s going to use this stuff if they don’t trust it.” — Simon
“I’m always asking what’s the user experience going to be? How are we actually going to put something in front of people that they’re going to understand…” — Simon
“There are lots of success stories, and there are lots of failure stories. And that’s just what you expect when you’ve got edtech companies moving at high speed.” — Simon
“We’re dealing, on the one hand, with poor products that give the whole field a bad name, but on the other hand, there are some really great products out there that are making a tangible difference, and teachers are extremely enthusiastic about.” — Simon
“There’s good evidence now, about the impact that some of these tools can have on learning. Teachers can give some homework out, and the next morning, they can see on their dashboard which questions were the students really struggling with.” — Simon
“The area that we’re getting more and more interested in, and which educators are getting more and more interested in, are the kinds of skills and competencies you need for a very complex future workplace.” — Simon
“We obviously want the students’ voice in the design process. But that has to be balanced with all the other voices are there as well, like the educators’ voice, as well as the technologists, and the interaction designers and so forth.” — Simon on the nuance of UX considerations for students
“…you have to balance satisfying the stakeholder with actually what is needed.” — Brian
“…we’re really at the mercy of behavior. We have to try and infer, from behavior or traces, what’s going on in the mind, of the humans we are studying.” — Simon
“We might say, “Well, if we see a student writing like this, using these kinds of textual features that we can pick up using natural language processing, and they revise their draft writing in response to feedback that we’ve provided automatically, well, that looks like progress. It looks like they’re thinking more critically, or it looks like they’re reflecting more deeply on an experience they’ve had, for example, like a work placement.” — Simon
“They’re in products already, and when they’re used well, they can be effective. But they can also be sort of weapon of mass destruction if you use them badly.” — Simon, on predictive models
064 - How AI Shapes the Products of Startups in MIT’s “Tough Tech” Venture Fund, The Engine feat. General Partner, Reed Sturtevant
063 - Beyond Compliance: Designing Data Products With Data Privacy As a UX Benefit with The Data Diva (Debbie Reynolds)
062 - Why Ben Shneiderman is Writing a Book on the Importance of Designing Human-Centered AI
061 - Applying a Product Mindset to Internal Data Products with Silicon Valley Product Group Partner Marty Cagan
060 - How NPR Uses Data to Drive Editorial Decisions in the Newsroom with Sr. Dir. of Audience Insights Steve Mulder
059 - How Design Thinking Helps Organizations and Data Science Teams Create Economic Value with Machine Learning and Analytics feat. Bill Schmarzo
058 - IoT Spotlight: 8 UI / UX Strategies for Designing Indispensable Monitoring Applications
057 - How to Design Successful Enterprise Data Products When You Have Multiple User Types to Satisfy
056 - How Design Helps Drive Adoption of Data Products Used for Social Work with Chief Data Officer Dr. Besa Bauta of MercyFirst
055 - What Can Carol Smith’s Ethical AI Work at the DoD Teach Us About Designing Human-Machine Experiences?
054 - Jared Spool on Designing Innovative ML/AI and Analytics User Experiences
053 - Creating (and Debugging) Successful Data Product Teams with Jesse Anderson
052 - Reasons Automated Decision Making with Machine Learning Can Fail with James Taylor
051 - Methods for Designing Ethical, Human-Centered AI with Undock Head of Machine Learning, Chenda Bunkasem
050 - Ways to Practice Creativity and Foster Innovation When You’re An Analytical Thinker
049 - CxO & Digital Transformation Focus: (10) Reasons Users Can’t or Won’t Use Your Team’s ML/AI-Driven Software and Analytics Applications
048 - Good vs. Great: (10) Things that Distinguish the Best Leaders of Intelligent Products, Analytics Applications, and Decision Support Tools
047 - How Yelp Integrates Data Science, Engineering, UX, and Product Management when Creating AI Products with Yelp’s Justin Norman
046 - How Steelcase’s Data Science, UX, & Product Teams Are Helping Customers Design Safer Office Workplaces Informed by Covid-19 Recommendations w/ J...
045 - Healthcare Analytics…or Actionable Decision Support Tools? Leadership Strategies from Novant Health’s SVP of Data Products, Karl Hightower
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