A call to action: a systematic review of ethical and regulatory issues in using process data in educational assessment

Large-scale Assessments in Education

An IERI – International Educational Research Institute Journal

Table 1 Process data and related concepts

Concept	Description
Process data	Data contained in a log file that relate to students’ activity and engagement during a digital assessment
Log file	Digital files containing all data captured and retained during students’ engagement with digital assessment
Educational data mining (EDM)^a	A process that reveals patterns, sometimes imperceptible and unexpected, in large educational datasets using statistical techniques, machine learning and data mining
Learning analytics^b	The capture of data generated by learners as they work within a digital environment and the visualisation and use of these additional data to improve teaching, learning and the learning environment
Big data^c	A loose term focused on the storage of large quantities of data in accessible form that can be used to analyse, predict and to make decisions

^aDescription adapted from Bienkowaski et al., (2012); Gobert et al. (2013) & Angeli et al., (2017).
^bDescription adapted from Avella et al., (2016); Pijeira-Diaz et al., (2016), cited in Pena-Ayala (2018); Wintrup (2017); Zhang et al., (2018) & SoLAR (online).
^cDescription adapted from Picciano (2012) & Wang (2017)