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data they are collecting, and associated risks, so they can make informed choices on how to protect and secure that data, and mitigate risk. Meanwhile, she also believes
transparency and consent are crucial; library users should be aware that data on themselves is being collected, and librarians should also seek consent from the user. “Your ability to ask a question at the reference desk should not be dependent on your willingness to have that question and your response recorded in a dataset,” she says.
“As librarians grapple with
training conducts a leaning analytics project with 2,500 students, Prioritizing Privacy training will impact the privacy protections offered to one million students,’ she adds. ‘Once you release this into an open educational resource, then the reach becomes very large.’ But as librarians grapple with privacy and ethics, learning analytics are developing fast. Predictive learning analytics take historical and current data on learners and the learning process, to create models to predict how to improve the learning environment. Indeed, as part of its collaborations with
privacy and ethics, learning analytics are developing fast”
‘We protect reader privacy so much, as
we want people to have the intellectual freedom to pursue their interests without scrutiny,’ she adds. ‘The only option is to step up to engage with these issues intentionally, so that we are at least creating a transparent environment with the greatest degree of consent possible.’ As part of the latest grant, face-to-face and online training on privacy protections for up to 400 participants will be provided. And Hinchliffe and Jones are also creating an open educational resource package that includes the training curriculum and guidelines for facilitating training. ‘This allows our materials “to live”, if
you will,’ says Hinchliffe. ‘Librarians tend to work with campus partners on learning analytics projects, and such projects may involve data from thousands of students. ‘If, for example, each participant in the
www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo
Jisc, the University of Gloucestershire intends to develop a fully predictive learning analytics model. Meanwhile, in its Library Learning Analytics Project, the University of Michigan is to formulate predictive models of the links between learning outcomes and library user-types – with results being shared using only aggregated and anonymised data. As OCLC’s McCann points out,
predictive analytics are probably still a way off, and many libraries will want to stick with simple descriptive analytics in the meantime. But he is watching this space with interest. ‘I would be very surprised if we didn’t get into predictive analytics,’ he says. ‘You can interpolate into existing data to
fill any gaps and then extrapolate some of that data to make predictions on what, say, a student has a problem with, or what does a certain topic need,’ he adds. But, as McCann points out, the onus lies on the library, as to how to intervene here. ‘We will need the librarians to tell us how they want to interpret those data, either as descriptive of student needs, or as predictive,’ he says. ‘A question that will be very important for librarians is – will they want to intervene in a student’s study? And of course this is a question that we just can’t answer.’
FSTA – For expert research in the Sciences of Food and Health
FSTA - Food Science and Technology Abstracts is a specialized database covering scientific and technological literature relating to food, beverages and nutrition. It is managed by a team of expert scientists at IFIS, a not-for-profit organization committed to helping the global food community find and explore trustworthy information directly related to the sciences of food and health. Covering a wide range of interdisciplinary
content, from journal articles and trade publications to conference proceedings and industry patents, FSTA is full of high-quality scientific abstracts – with approximately 1,700 new entries added every week.
Content Includes: • More than 1,500,000 records with informative abstracts
• Records dating back to 1969 • Over 1,000 journals currently covered with historical coverage of over 4,000 journals
• Information sourced in 29 languages from 60 countries
• Records indexed against the IFIS Thesaurus’ more than 13,000 subject keywords, providing an efficient search functionality
Authoritative Content and Expertly- Crafted Indexing FSTA enables researchers and students to quickly and easily find relevant information that they can trust. FSTA is closely managed by a team
of expert scientists, who rigorously vet additions and sources for value and relevance to the sciences of food and health. Every abstract in FSTA is indexed against the world’s most comprehensive subject-specific food and beverage thesaurus, for effective, targeted searching. Containing thousands of terms created and structured into food-centric hierarchies, the thesaurus uses controlled keyword terms to overcome variability in author terminology and scientific nomenclature, helping users to efficiently retrieve information and refine results.
For more information For a free trial, visit https://www.ebsco. com/products/research-databases/fsta- food-science-and-technology-abstracts
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