I’ve never been that convinced that monitoring student engagement with ‘virtual learning platforms’ could have a significant impact on learning. The Big Brother effect can easily result in resentment, stimulate attempts to hack the system, and generally reinforce the notion that ‘control’ is central to the learning experience.

But I’ve re-thought the idea and decided to implement a feature in the courses that I teach with Moodle support that allows students to see a log of the ‘hits’ they record on the various pages I’ve created.

Clearly, I’ve always had access to this information. (And those who have access to the internet logs from the service provider I use will have access to more detailed logs of my use of this data … etc. etc.) But why share it? Why have I changed my mind about using this feature?

The basic idea has to do with privacy and trust. I think that sharing this information is actually a way of developing a relationship with those students who use the Moodle site I’ve created. I know that this information could be used to represent ‘student engagement’ with a particular course. Along with attendance at class sessions, such data might measure some things (virtual and physical ‘hits’) though they are not easily equated with (intellectual) engagement with the concepts, theories and arguments that emerge from the contents of the course. Instead, my choice of sharing this information is intended to create a kind of symmetry. I’m not seeing anything that students can’t see. That’s a principle of transparency that when dealing with ‘private’ information (and I know; what we click on, when and where we do so, is rarely private) has a more general application. It’s a symmetry which contributes to trust. If I can see what you can see then there’s more chance that I’ll trust you. That’s the way it works in small villages where everyone knows everyone else’s business and where everyone can be counted on to keep an eye out for everyone else. It’s the solidarity that is not based on ‘friendship’ but on a mutuality built out of symmetry.

Staff-student relationships are not symmetrical. Learner-teacher relationships can and should be – and will be if based on mutual trust.