Abstract:
This paper addresses the conference theme, Voice, Truth, Place, by exploring the implications of educational data brokerage on consent and privacy in educational settings. An educational data broker is an organization or entity that collects, aggregates, and sells educational data generated by students, teachers, or educational institutions to third-party entities for commercial or other purposes. This topic is relevant to education researchers, policy makers and practitioners as it raises crucial questions about post-truth, scepticism of 鈥榳ho鈥� has expertise, and why some more than others, have voice, in a time of big data and AI. The theme of 'place' points to the digital places and spaces that teachers inhabit online. It contributes to knowledge and understanding in educational research by exposing hidden agendas, hidden voices, and the strange places that teachers鈥� digital data resides, through an extensive analysis of the social learning platform Edmodo, to justify the term 'educational data broker.' By shedding light on the largely obfuscated process of data brokerage in educational settings, the walkthrough method employed in this paper provides a rigorous methodology for analyzing the ways in which Edmodo functions as an educational data broker. The results of this paper are evidenced by concrete example of brokerage activity focusing on teachers' online activity by Edmodo and as such, offers evidence informed novel terminology to clarify the fundamentally obscured process of educational data brokerage. This paper is of interest to researchers, policy makers and practitioners, as it makes easier the process of understanding the complex issue of consent and privacy in educational settings that mandate or coercively encourage teachers to engage with commercial forms of edtech.