University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Human Nature Is Not a Machine: On Liberty, Attention Engineering, and Learning Analytics

Hartman-Caverly, Sarah

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105995

Description

Title
Human Nature Is Not a Machine: On Liberty, Attention Engineering, and Learning Analytics
Author(s)
Hartman-Caverly, Sarah
Issue Date
2019
Keyword(s)
  • Learning analytics
  • Libraries
  • Academic libraries
  • Attention engineering
Abstract
"This article undertakes a literature review to examine learning analytics through the lens of attention engineering. Informed by a critical literature synthesis from the fields of cognitive science, history, philosophy, education, technology, ethics, and library science, this analysis situates learning analytics in the context of communication and education technologies as tools in the manipulation of attention. The article begins by defining attention as both a cognitive activity and a metaphysical state intrinsic to intellectual freedom. The Progressive Era concept of attention engineering is then introduced and reinterpreted in the context of attention scarcity and academic capitalism in the Knowledge Era. The affordances of information and communications technology replicated in educational technology to facilitate data capture, analysis, and intervention in the form of ""nudge"" learning analytics are outlined as evidence of contemporary attention engineering in education. Attention engineering in education is critiqued as antithetical to students' intellectual freedom and development as self-sufficient learners and independent thinkers. The academic library's role in teaching and promoting attentional literacy and attentional autonomy is explored as a response to the intellectual freedom challenges posed by learning analytics as a form of attention engineering."
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Illinois School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Series/Report Name or Number
Library Trends 68 (1). Summer 2019
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105995
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2019.0029
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2019 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 68 (1) Summer 2019: Learning Analytics and the Academic Library: Critical Questions about Real and Possible Futures PRIMARY
Library Trends 68 (1) Summer 2019: Learning Analytics and the Academic Library: Critical Questions about Real and Possible Futures. Edited by Kyle M. L. Jones.