Just-in-Time or Just-in-Case? Time, Learning Analytics, and the Academic Library
Author(s)
Nicholson, Karen P.
Pagowsky, Nicole
Seale, Maura
Issue Date
2019
Keyword(s)
Learning analytics
Libraries
Academic libraries
Abstract
In this essay, we explore the timescapes of library learning analytics. We contend that just-in-time strategies, a feature of late capital modes of production, New Public Management, and future-oriented risk-management strategies inform the adoption of learning analytics. Learning analytics function as a form of temporal governmentality: current performance is scrutinized in order to anticipate future performance and prescribe just-in-time interventions to mitigate risk—not only for the student but also for the institution. Ultimately, we argue that using time as a lens to examine discourses surrounding library learning analytics reveals the temporalities reproduced in this discourse, which obscures questions of power, politics, and history. In describing what the future is, rather than what it could or should be, this discourse erases our ability to shape our futures, and our responsibility for so doing.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Illinois School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Series/Report Name or Number
Library Trends 68 (1). Summer 2019
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105996
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2019.0030
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2019 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Library Trends 68 (1) Summer 2019: Learning Analytics and the Academic Library: Critical Questions about Real and Possible Futures. Edited by Kyle M. L. Jones.
Use this login method if you
don't
have an
@illinois.edu
email address.
(Oops, I do have one)
IDEALS migrated to a new platform on June 23, 2022. If you created
your account prior to this date, you will have to reset your password
using the forgot-password link below.
