Inclusive Access content can capture vast amounts of data on students and faculty.

Like all modern digital resources, Inclusive Access course materials are designed to gather data on users. This can include data like where and when students log in, how fast they read, what answers they get right, and their level of engagement.

Analytics products built on data may be a selling point, such as enhanced insights for faculty or adaptive content for students. But, these tool can also come with significant downsides, from the biases built into algorithms to the inevitable reality of data breaches.

With major textbook companies launching new apps and developing business strategies similar to Netflix or Amazon, the exploitation of students and faculty data raises legal, ethical, and strategic issues for institutions.

Do students understand how digital course materials collect their data?

Inclusive Access is automatic, which takes away the agency in accepting the terms of service: students either click “I agree,” or they likely need to opt out of the course. Research by U.S. PIRG found that students are not well versed on how publishers may be gathering their data. On a scale of one to ten, the median student rated their understanding of these policies at a two.

Further Reading

Bots Are Grabbing Students’ Personal Data When They Complete Assignments (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2023)

Learning Analytics from a Systems Perspective: Implications for Practice (Educause Review, 2022)

Privacy and Surveillance in Digital Courseware (Judith Thomas et al., 2020)

The Publishers' Move to Capture Campus Data (Inside Higher Ed, 2019)