This document discusses opportunities for precision education arising from the move to digital education during the COVID pandemic. It notes that for the first time, essentially all educational materials were digital, creating opportunities to make content findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. This could improve content quality through transparency and ratings similar to academic publishing. It also enables aggregated views of content and student performance, improved content and syllabi, and recommender systems. Challenges include issues around content ownership, sharing rules, bias, privacy, security, and adoption of next generation learning management systems.

1. COVID & Precision Education
Philip E. Bourne
Philip E. Bourne
peb6a@virginia.edu
https://www.slideshare.net/pebourne
April 27, 2022

2. My Perspective
• Co-founder scivee.tv
• Founding Dean of a School of Data Science during a pandemic
• Worked in precision medicine, so why not precision education?
• Believe that higher education needs a rethink
Deans Blog: Education Online, A Data Science Opportunity
https://pebourne.wordpress.com/2020/09/30/deans-blog-education-online-a-data-science-opportunity/

3. For the first time in
history essentially all
educational materials
were digital
Inc.com

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_(computer_scientist)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-
content/uploads/2009/10/Fourth_Paradigm.pdf
https://twitter.com/aip_publishing/status/856825353645559808
Combined with:
The Driving Principle of Change

5. Some Opportunities
Content = lectures, course evals, exams, student engagement …..
• Content becomes FAIR
• Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable
• Content quality improves through transparency & ratings
• Akin to quality publishing and IF’s
• Provides aggregated views
• Improved content and syllabi
• Individual performance improves
• Recommender system
• Market advantage
• Libraries become the keepers of such content

6. Some Challenges
• Content ownership
• Rules of sharing
• Bias
• Privacy
• Security
• Adoption
• Next generation LMS’s
• Libraries become the keepers of such content
Inc.com