There are times when a long memory is downright unnecessary, but in most cases, a long memory can be quite beneficial, particularly in e-learning. Several recent incidences have highlighted this for me.

In the Digital Enclosure

While the four-walls “digital enclosure” doesn’t truly fully exist yet, for all practical purposes, it does in most learning / course management systems. The simple concept of the digital enclosure is that it is a place where a person’s actions are all recorded and observable. I think that if people were more aware of how much their behaviors may be tracked, they would be less likely to make particular assertions. Lots of flimsy assertions are made daily, but in online spaces, where the reality may be fairly easily checked against claims, these assertions should not be made.

I promise no gory details here, but a group of learners who’d participated in an online course were claiming full participation when in fact they had not done any work. They were apparently acting based in part on pressure from their administrators to have taken the course, in order to teach. My assumptions of the learning were that they were taking the course for professional self-betterment, so I wasn’t about to chase assignments. Besides, these learners are adults. And of course, administrators all decide individually how much truth-telling they want to hear. It’s all about “trust, but verify.”

Emails Archived, Too

The use of learner tracking within an LMS (a learning management system) is widely known. Students though somehow think that information in emails are not part of the record. They’ll sometimes engage in massive spamming. They’ll debate small points endlessly. They’ll push for more rights. They’ll point fingers at their peers. They’ll strive to argue for better grades. It all truly gets quite messy.

Some students will try to get an email response and then forward that email with changed or incorrect text on to gullible registrar’s offices.

I make it known that all emails are archived and searchable and available as part of the public record. It’s not only the online course that is archived. Surprise there…for some.

Project Billing

A long tech memory comes in handy when I had to “backwards bill” a project. It really helped that every hour could be accounted for and justified. This will come in handy on a current project where I’ve been brought on to do some site content building work—definitely not as the low-cost option—but for billing purposes, this will be critical.

And Research Journals

It helps to have general sketches of work documentation, in case an academic paper may be evolved from it or in case there are benefits for learning on similar other projects or circumstances. There’s a lot to be said for remembering…accurately.