Big Data – Avalanche? Flood? Tsunami? What does big data mean for educators? - Karen Cator, U.S. Department of Education

We are pleased to announce that the final version of this issue brief on improving teaching and learning using new big data methods is now available. Back in April, we released a draft of the report for public comment and had excellent and thoughtful input. The final report, now available on the Department’s website, was able to address some of this input and, for the rest, the Department is taking note for future projects. The report recommends that educators continue to become smart consumers and be more “data curious,” that researchers and developers balance automated decision-making against “human in the loop,” and that meaningful collaborations across sectors be created and sustained. A common thread across all recommendations is careful consideration of educator and student privacy and an overall effort to increase institutional capacity to gather, analyze, research, and act upon big data to improve teaching and learning. http://evidenceframework.org/big-data/