Big data ..... big assumptions?
A large part of big data are things that I do not want or need to know, and a large part of what I want to know is not in the data (or not analyzable). The number of messages between team members doesn't say anything about how well they fuction as a team, and we don't measure the messages that should have been sent :-)
Looking backwards on n Google's story I also wonder: analyzing which colour makes people interact more. So why do we think that more interaction is always better?
Big data..... wrong questions?
Big data make us ask questions about things that can be measured. These questions are not always the most important questions. Can't hurt?
In my world teachers only spend a limited amount of time and attention on improving their course when they get the evaluations. If they spend time on examining which learning resources were used by students, they won't spend it on thinking about the depth of the discussions.
I suppose my preliminary conclusion could be that it is all about asking the right questions.
It is also, howver, very much about not asking the wrong qeustions :-)
I believe more and more things are becoming measurable. It would be a pity to throw all that data away, just because you cannot come up with the right questions. Of course, you have to remain critical, but curiosity is as important.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI agree, as long as it doesn't distract us from more important things... Maybe, I should change the last sentence into 'Asking the most important questions first (and not the one that we have most data for)'
BeantwoordenVerwijderen