Data Management in Learning Analytics: Terms and Perspectives

On-line teaching environments (like all online environments) acquire extremely high granularity data both on users' personal profiles and on their behavior and results. The modern Analytics environments allow, at various levels and profiles, to have access to data both in aggregate and in individual form. One of the characteristic elements of online teaching environment is that the data is not anonymous but reproduces a personalization and identification of the profiles. Identifiability of the subject is implicit in a teaching process, but access to Analytics techniques reveals a fundamental question: "What is the limit?". The answer to this question should be preliminary to any use of data by users (students) or teachers or instructors or managers of online learning environments. Nowadays, we’re also experiencing a particular moment of change: the entry into force of the European General Data Protection Regulation 679/2016, the general regulation on the protection of personal data which aims to standardize all national legislation and adapt it to the new needs dictated by the evolving technological context. The objective of this work is to propose a list of the problems connected to data management in the context of Digital Education. To this end, an examination of the current legislation (both Italian and European) was conducted with particular reference to the contrast between the need for access (openness) and privacy (protection of users) in online teaching processes. Three points of view were evaluated: the institution that provides, the teacher who produces and the student who uses. The contribution aims to provide an in-depth analysis on the issue of data protection and management that can help the figures involved in the online educational process to understand the evolution of legal instruments regarding the production, management of OER so as to "use" them correctly in a current two-speed context: that of technology and that of legislation.