The Risks and Rewards of Data Creation: A Heuristic for Composition Instructors

Abstract This article provides a heuristic for composition instructors to help them examine digitally networked technologies (DNTs) so that they may decide whether or not the rewards of using such technologies outweigh the risks. In circumstances where instructors do not have much say in which DNTs they must use or in the ways they must use them, the heuristic is also meant to help instructors work with their administrators to show them the potential risks that such technologies pose to instructors’ careers. In other words, it offers instructors a means in which to reflect upon the unique roles instructors take on and to help them speak with those at their institutions who make important decisions regarding the technologies they can and cannot use in their classrooms. Specifically, this heuristic enables instructors to pay closer attention to the data that they and others might create, control, use, and circulate when using DNTs and to determine whether this data might help to advance instructors’ careers in ways that uniquely benefit instructors or whether the use of DNTs might actually hinder their careers instead.