Now, we find out what all that student data Instructure has been collecting is worth. Turns out it's $2 billion.
For years, Instructure said, "we just don't know what we're going to do with all this educational data?"
edsurge.com/news/2019-12-0…
For years, Instructure said, "we just don't know what we're going to do with all this educational data?"
edsurge.com/news/2019-12-0…
Meanwhile, folks are worried about whether the "fun, youthful sort of spirit" of Instructure will remain. I'll be honest, I was a huge supporter of Canvas. But, now, every time I see a panda bear, I just think about all the student data they are having so much "fun" collecting.
Note that this $2B price tag is more than the $1.75B Turnitin and their student data was acquired for.
Some questions I’m still hoping to get answers to:
And especially this one: how will students (and teachers) be compensated for the profit made from their data?
A couple bits worth keeping with the original thread:
And this:
Data was always Instructure’s biggest “asset.” Their product is a database. That’s what Canvas (or any LMS) is at its core. And the bulk of the data is pedagogical materials created by teachers and student work.
The worst part of all this is that many non-profit education institutions require faculty and students to contribute their data to Instructure’s database. How much of the $2B will those teachers and students get?
And just as worrying, maybe more, the press around this grossly high valuation will encourage more private for-profit edtech companies to prey on the precarity of public institutions, teachers, and students.
Some more thoughts on all of this from my recent keynote at #altc19 slideshare.net/mobile/jessest…
These are the kinds of questions we need to be asking of all our edtech tools, not just Canvas, and students should be part of that conversation. 
