Digital Identity Management in Formal Education

Implications for Policy and Decision-Making

Alan Moran

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367678395
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000440010
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Digital Identity Management in Formal Education offers a broad analysis of the online self considered from educational policy, technological, legal and social perspectives. This book introduces the reader to the notion that digital identity is a multifaceted topic which requires a broad and systematic approach that is rooted in risk-based policy. It provides educational technologists, leaders and decision-makers with an accessible, jargon-free guide to their responsibilities towards students and instructors in today's digitally networked schools and universities. Real-life examples illustrate how digital identities impact management and delivery, privacy and transactions, governance and accountability, and other interconnected choices in the use of technology-enabled services in formal learning.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003133070-1

Identity is a fluid concept that is highly context sensitive and any attempt to define it must be situated within a specific frame of reference. Indeed, a glance at the history of the development of identity management infrastructures reveals the assumption that access to computing networks and online services was somehow premised on one’s membership of an organisation that was in a position to attest to that fact. As access broadened, market imperatives took hold and architectures emerged that favoured the growth of subscribers, by widening the base of permissible users to anyone who registered an interest in a service. At the same time new data-driven models emerged that saw profit in the exchange of personal data and the monitoring of online behaviours. These developments in turn prompted responses aimed at regaining control over identity, by circumventing the need to appeal to centralised public or private authorities in order to affirm one’s presence online. In tracing this path, it becomes apparent that traditional educational identity management remains situated within an organisational context, from which it derives its legitimacy as the deliverer of education. At the same time, however, there is a deinstitutionalisation and a “democratisation” of identity at play that seeks to establish new norms and power relations. An individual therefore finds herself faced with the task of determining the appropriate balance between asserting her own identity and the need for certain characteristics to be affirmed by others (e.g. schools, universities).

Education finds itself in the vortex of these developments as it attempts to leverage its own organisational legitimacy through identity infrastructures (by means described in Chapter 5) and yet redefine itself along as yet unchartered lines. All this must occur in support of the wider goals of education based on lifelong learning (that extend beyond organisational boundaries) while appropriately recognising the different roles of identity in non-formal, informal and formal education. In attempting to understand this state of affairs a brief initial survey of how technology is used in education is undertaken. Thereafter, a technical definition of digital identity is presented that finds wide application both within and outside of education and which is found to be appropriate, at least in an initial assessment of the identity needs of education. This definition is then explored further in terms of those infrastructural components, atop of which classical digital identity lifecycle management is usually realised. This enables a more detailed examination of the identity infrastructures that are commonly found in education some of which may be linked to other public sector infrastructures such as national electronic identity schemes. It will, however, be noted that a standardised technocratic definition of digital identity falls short of the mark by failing to acknowledge the social and psychological dimensions of identity (that will be explored further in Chapter 5). Finally, an exploration of the potential implications of reframing identity in education along user-centric lines (as alluded to above) is deferred in order that a baseline can be established first (though this will be returned to again in Chapters 3 and 4).

Educational Technology

There are considerable expectations placed on the shoulders of educational technology that it will simultaneously reinvigorate learning in the classroom, while also easing the administrative burdens associated with teaching (Selwood, 2005). These two facets of education are linked by the belief that the data generated by digital services can be automatically processed to render information of use to educators. This mindset is spurned on by the notion that data-driven technologies such as learning analytics support the behavioural analysis of student interaction with materials in ways that are “scientific” and “evidence-driven” suggesting the neutrality and inevitability of their conclusions. It is rather telling that this claim that technology will “revolutionise” teaching practices, leading to significant efficiency gains which ultimately “democratise” access to education has a long history in education dating back to similar claims made of film, radio, television, microcomputers (Cuban, 1986) and more recently the Internet. These promises of reinvigorated learning and administrative efficiency gain have resulted in technology being positioned as a “production factor” within education. Over time, this has extended beyond its use in “lab” environments where computers were considered an important but ancillary support function, to become a central instrument in curriculum design and delivery. Nowadays entire teaching, learning and administrative processes can be found that are built entirely around digitalised models. These include online enrolment (including fee payment using Bitcoin), procurement of services through smart contracts, collaborative e-learning in groups, behaviour analysis and intervention (using artificial intelligence), assessment using remote proctoring, through to the award of digital achievement badges. Such developments have not only become commonplace, but are now defining new norms in terms of how education is understood. This is particularly important since it is the emergence of socio-technical infrastructures and the values they represent, that underpins the legitimacy of digital education. These include enablers in the efforts to create more student-centric models of education, wherein the role of the educator is reinterpreted as that of a coach or mentor assisting the learner in her efforts to make sense of the world.

This phenomenon is particular true of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) that garnished credibility through the efforts of leading US universities (e.g. MIT), who during the early 2000s made available vast amounts of resources via online platforms. These efforts culminating in the various e-Learning standards that included not only Open Educational Resources (OER)¹ but also content delivery (e.g. SCORM) and assessment (e.g. QTI) formats. Keenly supported by transnational organisations (e.g. UNESCO, OECD) and technology providers, MOOCs have found widespread popularity by prompting more modular forms of education that challenge the “monolithic” approaches offered by traditional learning institutions (e.g. qualifications based on the Bologna and its associated ECTS scheme). Despite the aspirations of (sometimes) free access to online resources, the availability of expert teachers and a relaxation of temporal and geographical constraints on learning evidence, suggests that they have mostly stood to benefit those who were already well educated² (Matthias & Mario, 2015). Furthermore, there remain reservations concerning completion rates, the recognition of awards and how data being gathered on learners might be sold on and used in other contexts. Consistent with this research on MOOCs it has been found that a wide range of factors (e.g. gender, race, socioeconomic status, educational level, etc.) are associated with disparities in access to and use of technology (Goode, 2010). Indeed, there appears to be evidence that technology is used differently based on socio-economic status, reflecting pre-existent divides within society that technology was only serving to widen (Warschauer, 2000). This suggests that one’s relationship with technology may well be shaped by culturally situated experiences.

Of central importance to the deployment of such technologies is how online activities are bound to individual persons and how the data gathered from such sources can be aggregated with other sources of data to build more complete profiles of online behaviours. In this context digital identity constitutes not only a cornerstone of the digital learning ecosystem, but also an arena in which new power structures are defined. Specifically, the ownership of digital identity management infrastructures confers considerable power in terms of the insights that can be gleaned and the ability to draw inferences from them. This is particularly concerning when applied to education as in the case of learning analytics that are often protected by trade secrets thereby releasing service providers from the scrutiny that would otherwise be afforded to education. For example, despite the popularity of digital learning tools in schools (estimated to be supported in the US by over 90% of learners and nearly as much by staff), studies involving OECD countries (incl. the US) have indicated that those who heavily use computers, perform a lot worse in most learning outcomes (Wexler, 2020). A similar study conducted within the US by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, concluded that the self-interests of the technology industry ensured a lack of transparency prevailed in relation to learning products and their algorithms (which were protected as trade secrets), exposing students to serious privacy threats. Moreover, the privatisation of educational decision-making has been cited as a specific criticism that resulted in a distortion of pedagogy in a manner that stifled student learning and inhibited their ability to participate in the democratic system (Boninger et al., 2019).

One’s own individual command of digital identity technology may also act as a technical or social barrier to involvement in certain activities (a notion referred to as technological identity in Chapter 5). For example, while determining appropriate password strength may perhaps be considered mundane enough for most users, securing other forms of digital identity such as private keys can be technically quite challenging. This may entail using a key store (e.g. PKCS#12³), deciding on an appropriate level of confidence in the identities of others within a web of trust model⁴ or applying a digital signature using the appropriate cryptographic standards (e.g. PKCS#7,⁵ PKCS#11⁶). While these are entirely learnable skills, they are likely to appear daunting to the uninitiated and therefore constitute a limiting factor to their access to services. This is particularly so in education where the first steps to socialisation in a digital world occur and where early identity habits are being formed. These and other barriers may drive social divisions surrounding education later in life, particularly when it comes to online study. For example, based on estimates by UNICEF nearly half a billion children worldwide lacked basic access to remote schooling (e.g. Internet, television or radio) during the COVID-19 pandemic (UNICEF, 2020), thereby putting them at a (further) disadvantage when compared to their wealthier peers. This is particularly pronounced in low-income economies where despite few households having a home computer, remote learning delivery models of service providers continually make overly generous assumptions concerning access to technology that appear to exclusively benefit more affluent households (Chauvin & Faiola, 2020).

While technology determines what is within the realm of the possible, it falls to society to consider what is morally and ethically legitimate. This requires an open public discourse surrounding the needs and values of society including how best to deliver a socially acceptable digital transformation of education as discussed throughout this book. Only then can legislators govern these social arrangements through appropriate legislative and regulatory measures (as described in Chapter 4). That identity is a political issue is evident in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals where “provid[ing] legal identity for all including free birth registrations” (UN, 2015) has loomed large. Though this goal emphasises the political dimension of identity in terms of citizenship and the accountable of a state towards its members, it also sets a clear trajectory for how digital identity must be framed in an increasingly digitalised world, for which a definition must first be formulated.

What is Digital Identity?

Ultimately the purpose of digital identity is to ensure access to services and accountability in respect of their use. When engaging with a digital realm (e.g. an online learning community, a student administration system, an e-portfolio platform or interacting virtually with robots or other devices, etc.), a physical person requires a digital presence. This binding of an individual to a set of characteristics that uniquely identify her within that digital realm and makes her involvement in transactions therein traceable, is broadly what is understood by digital identity (a more precise definition of which will follow later). Similarly, other actors within the digital realm may also be made identifiable as in the case when “device identity” is used for hardware entities (e.g. robots, sensors, etc.) though this form of identity will not feature prominently in what follows. While the former requires technical mechanisms that will be described in greater detail in Chapter 3, the latter is moderated by the social norms and values that govern acceptable behaviour as described in Chapter 5.

Within any digital realm, a subject refers to an entity that actively engages with a (passive) object. A subject generally refers to a human being (acting through her digital manifestation), though the term could equally apply to a physical mechanical component (operating via an interface) or a software process that acts directly on an object of interest (e.g. a document, process or other digitalised entity). On closer inspection it becomes apparent that this subject–object relationship is relative in that a given entity may act both as a subject or as an object depending on the context. For example, a faculty member may edit student records located in a student administration system which in turn places those records in persistent long-term storage (e.g. a database). In the initial stage of this interaction the faculty member (subject) edits records in the system (object), however, it is the system (subject) that later stores these records in recor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Educational Policy Perspective
• 3. Technology Perspective
• 4. Legal Perspective
• 5. Social Perspective
• Conclusion
• Index