As conversations around ethics of data usage grow, both on-and-off campus, different lines are being drawn in the sand. But it really is still a new frontier in that there are no standardized rules, and companies and organizations are encountering new dilemmas every day.
Although, that might slowly be changing. In March of this year, New America released a set of guidelines for the ethical use of data in higher education. Using data analysis to record and track university students has been a controversial topic, especially in the face of Trump’s immigration policies, as these data could potentially be used to out un-documented students. However, even before that there were concerns about how universities could and couldn’t use student data, and where the line was between their own gain and the students’ personal freedoms.