H1N1 & The Potential Role Of Digital Communities
Posted by lou in Technology, US Education on September 11th, 2009
H1N1, the name the Swine Flu is also known by, continues to make an impact on communities across the world. As school has started across the United States, many families are seeing the predictions by health organization personnel hit home. In California, Dr. Horton, the head of the Department of Public Health has published studies that predict peak absenteeism of 30% in schools. This has led many government officials to call for school closures in the event of an H1N1 outbreak in a school district. While many school districts have backed off of plans to actually shut schools unless they see fairly large numbers of students with the flu, there have been school closures.
Articles such as this one from Associated press drive home the point:
SPOKANE, Wash. – Washington State University is in the midst of a swine flu outbreak since classes started last month, with 2,500 people contacting student health to report flu-like symptoms and officials handing out flu kits around campus.
The US government in cooperation with some of the largest school technology companies in the industry has discussed plans for “Continuity of Learning” in the event that large scale school closures are needed. Pearson Corporation put out a press release recently:
August 24, 2009 – As announced by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today,
the education and technology company Pearson has developed a “Continuity of Learning” plan to
continue students’ education if school attendance is disrupted due to the H1N1 virus or other crisis events.
This led us at Connected Information Systems to consider the role products like ours could play in the same scenario. At the highest level, it is difficult to conceive regular schooling taking place if there were massive school closures. While parents would struggle with how to provide basic care for their children, the constraints of daily life would present multiple challenges to families that may prevent most “learning” from being possible. I believe that the more important consideration is how will all these children “catch up” with school work. Will teachers keep lesson plans and assignments accessible to absent students?
Let’s paint a picture. First, if the State of California predictions are accurate, almost 1/3 of any class may be sick and unable to undertake most activities considered to be “learning”. However, the normal run of H1N1 is likely to be under a week and most school closures would be double or triple that to allow the virus to not be passed from child to child. But, it is likely that even after a school closure, many more students and teachers will continue to contract the disease from sources outside of school. Thus, the flu season will create many interruptions for individual students and unless proper planning is in place, will create inequities in access to learning materials and opportunities. If a child is absent for a week, in addition to the possibility of a school closing for three weeks on top of that, four weeks of schooling may be lost to the disease. In a normal semester based school term, this represent almost 1/3 of the time available to teach and may be impossible to “make up” given the way schools generally operate. While H1N1 is today’s issue, the possibility of more influenza outbreaks in the future needs to be considered too. So, I applaud the government putting plans into action that might address the shortcomings of our current system of education.
The main point of this post is to consider how products like Connected.info might help. My first thought is that the extension of a school community into the digital realm makes dealing with many of the issues presented by a school closure potentially addressable. The ability to use technology to safely communicate with others involved in the learning process can be a huge help in being able to keep the learning process going during a flu outbreak. Consider the range of technologies employed by digital community services like Connected.info:
- Video Sharing
- Document Sharing
- weblogs (blogs)
- wikis
- Discussion Forums
- Various forms of messaging including mobile messaging
All of these technologies can foster communication and collaboration without physical proximity. This would be key in an environment where students are not able to interact face to face due to the threat of exposure to a flu virus. For example, let’s walk through the process of delivering a lesson to a group of students through digital means. Assuming that most content available to a school was geared to a brick and mortar environment, a teacher would need to find an appropriate digital substitute. Using podcast creation tools, the teacher could create a lesson that combined multiple media types into a video that could be delivered through a digital community medium in the form of an assignment. Connected.info can also make sure that parents or care providers are also made aware of the availability of the lesson.
Students could view the lesson and undertake any follow on assignments at a time which is convenient for them or in the case of a child who is ill, feasible for them. Using the other technologies such as a discussion forum, the students can post questions and comments on the lesson and read other students’ posts or those of the teacher. The students can submit their assignments to the teacher using the digital community as well.
Why couldn’t a school system simply employ things like email in combination with parent and student portals available in most student management systems? While portals can provide information access, most do not offer bi-directional communication tools such as discussion forums and wikis. One way information flow is helpful in the sense that it is better than the absence of information, but the collaborative work required in a school setting requires bi-directionality to the information flow.
Available technologies now allow for much of the learning process to continue in the event of a flu outbreak that closes off traditional schooling. One aspect of the “solution” that we have not discussed is the creation of the digital community itself. Simply relying on the adhoc friend networks of a Facebook or MySpace would not be practical for most schools. Setting aside privacy and security concerns for a moment, we need to think about the need for a digital community that maps completely to the school’s structure. All students enrolled in a class section of Freshman English in Period 2 with Mr. Johnson as the teacher must be able to see Mr. Johnson’s digital assignment. All parents of those students must be informed of the lesson and assignment. Thus, only a digital community like Connected.info which is integrated into the student management system would be a reasonable approach to addressing the flu outbreak scenario.
Returning to the issue of security and privacy, any solution leveraged by a school must comply with applicable federal and state laws – CIPA, COPPA, and FERPA for example. Most broad based digital community systems do not take these laws into consideration for the most part. COPPA for example, requires physical verification of parental consent before a user under the age of 13 can use an online system which leverages personal information about the user. If you are a Facebook or MySpace user, you know that all that is required is that a user enter a birthdate which shows them to be over 13 (or 16 sometimes). No parental consent or age verification is required.
What is required in the event of an H1N1 outbreak is that schools are able to leverage a digital community service which is designed to both reflect the needs of an educational process, but also integrates with existing management systems. Anything else falls short of meeting the challenges of an epidemic.
I have one last point to make about the use of digital technology in the event of an epidemic with respect to the government’s policy on Internet access. Most of us who use the Internet on a regular basis have accepted that the monies paid to an Internet Service Provider are ones we are willing to bear. The benefits of access are seen as worth the price for the most part. However, consider the difference between the FCC’s role in allocating frequency bandwidth for TV broadcasters and the limited role any government agency plays in promoting the availability of Internet access. In the TV space, everyone has the option of simply buying a TV and an antenna and watching the available programming without paying anyone. Some people choose to opt into a cable TV or satellite TV service in order to gain access to more content. However, there is a viable free choice.
With respect to the Internet, there is no free access choice available in the United States for the most part. In some cities, the generosity of the local government (San Francisco) or a corporation like Google (Mountain View) has made wireless access available. My opinion is that a person should be able to purchase a computer and a network access device and then be able to get on the Internet without paying for access. That access can be at a lower bandwidth than typical broadband services (3-6Mbps), but there should be a free option. Coupled with the availability of low cost netbook style laptop computer for less than $200, this would put widespread Internet access into the hands of many households who currently can not afford access.
Or, perhaps, mobile devices hold more promise. Many more people now own cell phones than have computers. As these devices gain more capability, perhaps Internet access in times of emergency such as a flu pandemic could be provided more practically by cell phones. In any case, without a comprehensive approach to a reasonable Internet access policy, even solutions such as Connected.info will not be able to address the need.
As always, we welcome your comments.
Addressing privacy concerns
Posted by lou in connected.info updates on September 9th, 2009
Being a software provider in the educational market means having to address issues where the business practices of other companies in the market create a negative view of your company. Being a custodian of student data is one such issue. In our privacy statement (posted on our website), we state the following:
Connected does not share information with anyone not associated with the Connected service, except when required to by proper legal process (for example, Connected will cooperate with criminal investigations in the United States).
Connected is designed to share information among users, who in turn choose which other users they will share details with. A user (or an underage user’s parent) can restrict this information sharing in the Privacy Settings. Other users are individuals; Connected does not allow businesses to become users. Our user agreement does not require users to keep confidential the personal information they obtain about other users.
If Connected obtains information about a user who is under 18 from a school, that information will be shared with teachers, administrators, and other education-related employees of that school who are also users of Connected, regardless of the sharing restrictions set by the user or user’s parent, in order to fulfill the school’s educational mission.
However, in the past, data obtained about a child or their families, whether used in aggregate form or in specific detail was considered an integral part of the business model of some companies. Until the passage of federal legislation protecting the privacy of certain types of data, a company could freely market such data to other companies for their own marketing purposes. Now, laws significantly restrict what can be shared, but they do not prohibit all types of data sharing, and this is where some school officials have a valid reason to be concerned.
However, the COPPA (Children’s On-line Privacy Protection Act) among other laws, does require any company collecting data which can personally identify a child under the age of 13, to provide detailed information on the uses of such data to parents prior to the collection of any data. This disclosure should be available from the company to any school official that has concerns about the intended use of the data.
There are significant penalties which can be imposed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on any company which does not abide by its disclosures.
This is all well and good, but what about what Connected.info does? Where do we stand?
First, on the issue of data sharing, we do fully support the right granted under the FERPA law for a parent to have access to any data captured by a school regarding their child(ren). In some cases, this may create unease for a school official. We work hard to make it possible for a parent to easily obtain access to that data on their child and then to own that data as part of what we call the child’s Electronic Student Record. But, once we give that access to a parent, the parent is then the owner of that data and we only act as a custodian of that data for them. Only in cases where we are required to cooperate with a criminal investigation would share that data without parental permission.
Sometimes, companies hide behind a Terms of Use document to gain permission on the part of a parent to use data the parent must grant access to. For example, a company’s terms of use document may call out the fact that from time to time data will be shared with other companies in order to enhance the user’s experience, etc. Since most Terms of Use are many pages long, it is unlikely that a user will read the Terms of Use carefully enough to understand the ramifications of that wording or realize that by agreeing to the terms of use, they have now granted the company the ability to share their data.
At Connected Information Systems, we believe that this is not a good business practice and our terms of use contain no such language in either our Terms of Use or Privacy Policy.
Another concern can be (and very well should be), what do we do to the school’s data. Do we change the data or access it in a way which may create a question about what is the real source of the data?
First, we only access data on a child on behalf of the school or a parent. Second, we create a copy of data contained in the school’s student management systems using a read-only process. We do not modify the school’s data, leaving the school’s data as the so called “system of record”. In other words, if there is ever a discrepency between data we have in Connected.info and the data in a school’s student management system(s), the school’s data is always the correct version.
Then, once we have made a copy of the data in Connected.info, we operate under a data sharing agreement with the school which, among other things, specifies that we will only allow access to that data to school users, i.e. teachers, until a parent has granted any other access, agreed to the terms of use document and granted access to their child’s information.
As parents ourselves, we believe in this as well as support the laws in place to protect a user’s privacy.
Connected Information Systems Recognized as a New California 100 Business Innovator
Posted by lou in connected.info updates on September 8th, 2009
PRESS RELEASE
Connected Information Systems Recognized as a New California 100 Business Innovator by Golden Capital Network & Hamilton Lane
Roseville, CA (Sept. 1, 2009) – Connected Information Systems has been recognized as a New California 100 Innovative Business by Golden Capital Network and Hamilton Lane. New California 100 businesses are some of the most innovative companies in the state representing California’s commitment to innovation, entrepreneurship, and workforce competitiveness.
Approximately 100 companies throughout the State of California received this prestigious recognition from over 400 nominations. New California 100 Businesses will be recognized during a luncheon awards ceremony at 11:45am-1:15 pm on September 22, 2009 at the New California 100 Conference in Sacramento’s Sheraton Grand Hotel.
New California 100 Businesses are market leading, privately held companies that have been selected based on the uniqueness of their innovation, competitive advantages, and positive impact on California’s job market and overall economy now and into the future.
“These innovators are powerful job-creating machines,” said Jon Gregory, CEO/President of Golden Capital Network. “We believe innovation and entrepreneurship are the drivers of economic growth in California and these Innovation All-Stars are models for our state.”
About Connected Information Systems:
ConnectEd.info is designed to keep teachers, students, and parents in sync. Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis provide an environment for safe, collaborative learning. Advanced calendar tools make it easy for parents to keep track of their children’s busy schedules. ConnectEd.info is also designed to reduce overhead for a school’s administrative and IT staff. By leveraging near-real-time access to your student information system, ConnectEd.info seamlessly integrates with and connects your school community without the need for duplicate data entry.
About Golden Capital Network:
Golden Capital Network leads by stimulating economic vitality through early stage private equity investment, connecting innovative entrepreneurs, active investors, service providers, and policymakers to share the insights, risks, and rewards of innovative collaboration. Our purpose is to facilitate entrepreneur and investor networks to provide capital, expertise, and resources for building world-class companies. Golden Capital Network provides communities with the capabilities to maximize the value of their own social capital networks for accelerating their homegrown entrepreneurs. Since 1999, Golden Capital Network’s 1,000+ alumni companies have raised more than $1.3 billion in capital. Golden Capital Network alumni companies include NovaBay Pharma (IPO); InterVideo (IPO), StubHub (acquired by Ebay), Security Focus (acquired by Symantec); PowerSchool (acquired by Apple); MaxPreps (acquired CBS), Meridian Systems (acquired by Trimble), and Hanson Information Technology (acquired by Information Global Systems).
About Hamilton Lane
Hamilton Lane is an independent financial institution that provides discretionary and non-discretionary private equity asset management services to sophisticated investors worldwide.
Founded in 1991, Hamilton Lane has grown to over 110 employees, with over $94 billion in total assets under management and supervision including over $12 billion of assets under management for managed accounts. Hamilton Lane clients include a number of the world’s largest institutional investors, as well as many mid-sized and smaller institutions.
Press Contacts:
Connected Information Systems
Lou Delzompo, 916-273-3314, ldelzompo@connectedinfosys.com
Golden Capital Network
Jon Gregory, 530-828-3228, jon@goldencapital.net
Hamilton Lane
Jessica Fernandez,
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Important Elements of an Acceptable Use Policy – Part 3
Posted by lou in Internet Education, US Education on September 8th, 2009
In part three of a series of posts I will continue to examine the elements that go into many (most?) school district acceptable use policies, sometimes also called an AUP. You can view part 1 here and part 2 here.
To review, every school district should have an AUP which covers the terms of use for their computing resources. This of course also should deal with the Internet access provided from their computing resources. A proper AUP should spell out not only acceptable student use, but also that of the district’s staff members. Why? Because a good AUP can provide the basis for a legal defense in that it shows that the school district is being diligent in its duty to protect users entrusted to its care.
(Note: The legalities are also covered in more detail in this post :http://blog.connected.info/2009/03/21/legal-aspects-of-social-networking-in-a-school-community-part-1/)
Some common elements of an AUP include:
- The Intended Purpose of Internet Access & the AUP
- CIPA compliance issues – no inappropriate content
- District’s right to monitor user activity
- Activities which are not allowed
- Security and Privacy
- Copyright issues
- Application licensing
- Consequences of non-compliance with the AUP
(The wikipedia post on AUPs covers some of the same topics at a more general level here)
Application licensing
Many school districts have adopted a policy which locks down the application content of a school computer and only allows the execution of applications from an approved list. However, in some cases, school districts have yet to deploy such solutions. This leaves them open to software piracy on the part of their users. Applications the district has purchased can be copied and moved to other computers, violating most software vendors license agreements. Also, inappropriately obtained software from the Internet can be installed on school district computers. This can open the district up to potential lawsuits and/or the expense of paying for software installed by a user, but not purchased by the school district. In some cases, even software considered “free” or open-source can open the district up to legal issues.
The AUP should detail out what is and is not allowed with respect to application use. There should be a statement of what the district’s policy is, for example, “The school district treats software license agreements very seriously and intends to comply with the terms and conditions set forth by the individual software vendors.” Then, the AUP should state that either a) software not on the district’s approved list (location) should never be installed on district computers by any user or b) software not on the district’s approved list may be installed by a user on a district computer, but is subject to removal by district technical staff should the district become aware of any violations of the license agreement for such software. In the case of b), users should be advised to retain proof of purchase or some other proof of the ability to legally use the software.
Consequences of non-compliance
The AUP should include a very detailed section on what the consequences are of not complying with the AUP. There will by and large be a increasingly severe level of consequence as well as the always important “repeated offense” consequence. Any financial burdens assumed by the parents of students should be spelled out clearly and in such a way that a parent signing the form can not miss it. Having a place in the AUP where the financial burdens are initialed by the parent is a good idea.
Some common consequences include loss of use of district computing resources for a specific period of time, suspension, expulsion, as well reimbursement to the district of any expense associated with the use of the equipment in an inappropriate manner.
Summary
It is surprising to see school districts that have not invested an appropriate amount of time into the creation of a good AUP. While other districts hire outside legal counsel or pay consultants to create their AUP, other school districts seem to feel that it is not worth the time because they have not experienced an issue to date. Frequently, this is called security by obscurity. In other words, because the district is not large or located in a remote part of the country, they may not attract the attention of other districts. Also, and this is a broad generalization, the frequency of lawsuits brought against a district does tend to scale with the size of the metropolitan area served by the school district. This really isn’t a good excuse for not having an AUP. Also, the terminology used in an AUP can be an important learning opportunity for students, teachers, and parents. Whether or not the school district feels a responsibility for teaching digital citizenship, students need to learn somewhere.
For further information on writing an AUP or the location of examples, see the links below:
Very Basic AUP template in txt form
Virginia Department of Education site – includes downloadable templates
Awesome Library site – good coverage of AUP topic and includes samples
Connecting with Friends in Connected.info
Posted by lou in Product Tips and FAQs, connected.info updates on September 5th, 2009
One of the main features of Connected.info is the ability to create connections between yourself and other users. These connections allow you to share information through an unlimited number of personal groups by inviting your friends to join a group. Each and every group in Connected.info has its own calendar, document sharing, blog and wiki, and discussion forums. There is also photo sharing with built-in integration to Flickr(tm). The first step in all of this is to invite another user to become your friend in Connected.info.
The process of becoming friends has many restrictions placed on it by existing laws such as FERPA and COPPA. These laws require that for any student, parental approval must be obtained before a student can interact with anyone else in a system such as Connected.info except for their teacher(s). Thus, only students whose parents have both registered for Connected.info AND approved their child’s use of the system can be invite to be a friend.
One of the bootstrap issues this creates in Connected.info is that frequently students are provided registration tokens and register to use Connected before their parents are given their registration tokens by the school district. Many times, the school district will wait until “Back to School” night to provide the registration tokens. A better system is to provide the registration tokens during “schedule pickup” day or at the time of enrollment.
Let’s move on to the process of making a friend request. Step 1 is to navigate to the Friends area in the application by selecting the Connections tab and then selecting Friends in the left side navigation frame. At this point, typing all or part of the friend’s name into the search box and pressing Return, will perform a search. The result will be a list like the one below:
Notice that there is a Request as Friend link in blue to the right of each name found. Selecting the link will instruct Connected.info to deliver a friend request to the selected user. Once the user has accepted the request, they will show up in your list of friends. You will also receive a message in your Message inbox when they have accepted the request.
Once you are friends, the next step may be to create an on-line group for you and your friends to interact. This could be based on a school project, club, sports team, or just around a topic of interest such as Music. Suppose you were interested in Techno music and wanted a place to share news and information about your interest with your friends.
Creating a group in Connected.info is very easy. Again, select the Connections tab in the application. You will be in the groups are by default. Select the Create Group button and you will see a popup similar to the one below:
Fill out the information on the group you wish to create and decide whether you want this to be an invitation only group or not. Then, select Create Group and you have created the group.
The next step is to invite your friend to be members. To do that, select the group from the list of group you are a member / owner of and you will navigate to the group’s page as in the image below:
Then, select the Invite button and you will navigate to a page similar to the one below:
You can type into the box as many friends as you want. As you type, the system will show you any friends whose names match the part of the name you have typed. Once you have completed your list, select the Invite button and the system will notify all of the people you have invited. As they accept the invitation, they will show up as members on the group page.
We hope this helps give you some ideas of how to interact with your on-line friends. As always, we welcome your notes and feedback.
Using Discussion Groups To Extend A Lesson
Posted by lou in Uncategorized on September 4th, 2009
Schools using Connected.info are seeing a benefit to utilizing the Discussion Forum feature to extend the learning of certain lessons. Posing topics for discussion as homework instead of assigning work to be done as individuals has the effect of engaging students in the learning process in ways that traditional homework can not. Consider the forum topics below:
As students post their opinions on the discussion topics, they are leading other students to a better understanding of the lesson. As those other students respond, they are collaborating in a way which studies have shown results in increased learning. Moreover, these interactions are similar to the kinds of on-line interactions they will be having as adults. While it is natural for norms to develop in these interactions by themselves, the process of interacting presents instructors with opportunities to teach digital citizenship.
Creating a topic is simple and adding a response is also very simple. Students will see the following when they select a discussion topic:
By clicking Add Response, they will be able to type in their thoughts. Once they post a response, there are two possible workflow options. By choosing to moderate the posts by checking the box in the Info section of the group (see below), their response will show up in a list of responses for you to approve. Otherwise it will immediately post unless there is profanity in the post. Then, the post will be removed by the system and you will have a chance to delete it. Our experience has been that students will also regulate other students by flagging posts as objectionable if they know the flagging will be done anonymously. Both options provide instructors with the degree of control they need to feel comfortable.
Instructors using Connected.info report that they are seeing two measurable benefits from using Discussion Forums in this way. First, students who do not feel comfortable sharing their opinions in class are doing so online. Some teachers are reporting participation rates as high as 90% in the online forums. Second, the time devoted to lessons by students when online forums are used can be as much as a week or two beyond that of the in-class session. Increases in grades have not been measured as of yet, but early reports have also been positive.
We hope you will consider using the Discussion Forum feature of Connected.info to assist in your learning endeavors.
Important Elements of an Acceptable Use Policy – Part 2
Posted by lou in Internet Education, US Education on September 3rd, 2009
In part two of a series of posts I will examine the elements that go into many (most?) school district acceptable use policies, sometimes also called an AUP. You can view part 1 here
To review, every school district should have an AUP which covers the terms of use for their computing resources. This of course also should deal with the Internet access provided from their computing resources. A proper AUP should spell out not only acceptable student use, but also that of the district’s staff members. Why? Because a good AUP can provide the basis for a legal defense in that it shows that the school district is being diligent in its duty to protect users entrusted to its care.
(Note: The legalities are also covered in more detail in this post :http://blog.connected.info/2009/03/21/legal-aspects-of-social-networking-in-a-school-community-part-1/)
Some common elements of an AUP include:
- The Intended Purpose of Internet Access & the AUP
- CIPA compliance issues – no inappropriate content
- District’s right to monitor user activity
- Activities which are not allowed
- Security and Privacy
- Copyright issues
- Application licensing
- Consequences of non-compliance with the AUP
(The wikipedia post on AUPs covers some of the same topics at a more general level here)
Activities which are not allowed
The AUP should spell out in some detail all the possible activities which are not allowed when using the school district’s resources. It is wise not to assume too much in this section. For example, the district should not assume that users will understand that using the resources of the district for illegal activities are not allowed. There are a broad range of illegal activities that should be covered. One which is not normally thought of is using the district’s resources as part of hacking into other systems. Since the user at a school district may assume some degree of anonymity while using a school computer, they may view this as an advantage when trying to hack into another system. This should, of course, apply also to hacking into the district’s administrative systems, particularly the one used to record grades. The AUP should cover intentionally spreading viruses, creating bots to impact the performance of the systems on the network, and other such uses.
It is worth including some specific examples of other, non-computer based illegal activities in the AUP – drug sales, gang activity, bullying, etc. The main purpose is that unless these items are listed, it will be more difficult to apply appropriate consequences to the actions taken by a user.
The AUP should cover a broad set of issues relating to “inappropriate language”. This is the area of an AUP where care must be taken to spell out activities a user can engage in, which on the surface are protected by their right to free speech. However, the choice to refrain from such actions when the action will result in the loss of a privilege, in this case the use of a school district’s computing resources, does not in itself represent a constraint upon free speech. The district must not do anything to prevent a user from the free expression of an opinion, even when that expression contains profanity. However, the use of a school district’s resources to express that opinion is not protected by the US Constitution. The AUP can also spell out the responsibility a user has to report activities of another user when they violate the AUP. Ironically, the broader the dissemination of a message across a community of users, the better the chance that someone will report bad behavior. This is a part of our experience with Connected.info that surprised us. Essentially, we concluded that kids like to rat each other out, especially when they can do it anonymously. Over time, the bad behavior disappeared.
Another area of illegal activities that should be included in an AUP are things like plagiarism and copyright infringement. Here, the inclusion in the AUP protects the school district from being seen as supporting these activities and allows the district to be protected in the eyes of courts from being liable. It is also wise to include in the AUP notice that if copyright violations are brought to the attention of the school district, the district is required to take down or remove the offending content as soon as reasonably possible.
Security and Privacy
The AUP should remind users to protect the privacy of their information by:
- Not posting on any public medium any information which would personally identify themselves or provide information about their location such as address, phone number, birthdate, names of friends or siblings, etc.
- Keep any passwords private and not share them with other users / students.
- Report any suspicious or unauthorized activity in their account such as strange emails or chat requests, etc.
District staff and teachers need to be reminded in the AUP about the need to protect the confidentiality of student records information. Any electronic communication of student information must include wording in the subject and body of the communication that the contents of the communication contain confidential information that is subject to federal and state law regarding the protection of such information. The sharing of student information without parental consent is a violation of the FERPA law and can result in severe penalties to a school district including the loss of all federal funding. Parental consent also applies to whether a student account can be created.
An interesting example of where it is not clear that parental consent is needed is the use by students of the free services provided by Google such as Google Docs. When a school establishes a relationship with Google for the use of Google Doc in an educational setting, the creation of the required gmail account by a student is subject to the same requirement for parental approval. This is the case even though the service is provided by a commercial vendor other than the school if the school district or even an individual teacher requires the use of the Google tools. Since Google does not require parental approval to create the gmail account, this is a violation of FERPA law.
A school district is also prohibited from entering into any relationship with a commercial vendor where the vendor intends to capture, analyze, and possibly sell data on student use of an application or website for the purpose of marketing or advertising. Again, the use of Google doc would be a violation of this rule on the part of a school district.
For districts that intend to have students under the age of 13 use computing resources, special care must be taken to insure that student confidentiality is maintained as the COPPA law applies. Other posts in our blog have covered a district’s responsibilities under COPPA, but the AUP must spell out what a district requires as well as the consequences for non-compliance on the part of district staff or teachers.
Copyright issues
The AUP should cover the copyright violations under the area of activities which are not allowed, but what about the copyrights and other intellectual property protections for original works created by students, teachers, and district personnel? Inherent in any content created by a user using school district equipment is the question of intellectual property ownership. When a student sends a paper in response to an assigned project, it should be pretty clear that the student has a copyright on the submitted work. Thus, the AUP needs to acknowledge that the student has a copyright and that other users of district resources, for example, the teacher, must respect that copyright. It would, for example, not be acceptable for a teacher to publish the student’s work on a 3rd party website without the student’s permission OR without including language to the effect that the student owned the copyright. However, as we mentioned earlier, the teacher would not be able to include the student’s name in the copyright language without parental permission. When one reflects on the number of times that this occurs on the Internet, it is clear that not many people are informed or doing what they are supposed to.
A second question that must be addressed by the district is that of ownership of content created by district employees and teachers. Particularly in the case of teachers, this can be a touchy subject. Many school districts have opted to use the Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/) for content created by a teacher. Other districts take the stand that since the content was created using school district equipment and resources that the district owns the rights to the content. As more content is made available in on-line forms, this distinction can be the difference between revenue to the district and revenue to an individual teacher. Whichever way a district decides to proceed, it is very important to include the position in the AUP so that everyone is informed.
To be continued…
Important Elements of an Acceptable Use Policy – Part 1
Posted by lou in Internet Education, Technology on August 28th, 2009
In this series of posts I will examine the elements that go into many (most?) school district acceptable use policies, sometimes also called an AUP. First of all, every school district should have an AUP which covers the terms of use for their computing resources. This of course also should deal with the Internet access provided from their computing resources. A proper AUP should spell out not only acceptable student use, but also that of the district’s staff members. Why? Because a good AUP can provide the basis for a legal defense in that it shows that the school district is being diligent in its duty to protect users entrusted to its care.
(Note: The legalities are also covered in more detail in this post : http://blog.connected.info/2009/03/21/legal-aspects-of-social-networking-in-a-school-community-part-1/)
Some common elements of an AUP include:
- The Intended Purpose of Internet Access & the AUP
- CIPA compliance issues – no inappropriate content
- District’s right to monitor user activity
- Activities which are not allowed
- Security and Privacy
- Copyright issues
- Application licensing
- Consequences of non-compliance with the AUP
(The wikipedia post on AUPs covers some of the same topics at a more general level here)
Intended Purpose:
There are many possible reasons for a school district to offer Internet access, but the primary reason is to further the learning process. Spelling out the reasons that Internet access is present often makes the explanation of other decisions easier for the user base to understand. For example, blocking access to Amazon.com during regular school hours to save bandwidth may be an appropriate decision for a district. Users who wish to order books during the day may be more understanding of the decision if it is spelled out in the AUP.
Secondarily, there are boundaries to set in the document so that users understand the difference between using the Internet from their home and from school. One example is that it is appropriate for a school district to restrict access to certain information and content on the Internet when it interferes with the tasks involved in the educational process. Some users, particularly teen-age children may view this as an unacceptable attack on their rights to free speech. If the AUP spells out the role of the Internet in the educational process, it will be clear that free speech and restricted access are not incompatible concepts.
However, it is incumbent on the district to insure that a user’s right to freely express their opinion only on the basis of differing perspectives. For example, blocking access to a neo-nazi web site because its views are objectionable may be considered an inappropriate restriction on a student’s right to free speech. However, blocking the same site because it contains inappropriate content (nudity, etc.) is a good decision because the educational purpose of a school district includes the responsibility to protect underage users from being exposed to inappropriate content.
CIPA compliance
Since Internet access at schools is covered by the federal Children’s Internet Protection Act or CIPA, the AUP should spell out how the district intends to comply with the law. Since non-compliance with CIPA can affect a district’s ability to received federal funds that can be used to provide Internet access, the consequences are primarily financial. Being in non-compliance can be grounds for a claim of negligence on the part of parents and as such would open up the district to civil lawsuits. The district’s AUP should spell out the reasons for compliance or non-compliance with the CIPA act as well as which actions (blocking sites, etc.) will be taken by the district.
Since many of the sites being blocked by a district are ones which some students will find very attractive, it is wise to anticipate in an AUP that students will actively engage in activities designed to circumvent what a district has put in place. The AUP should speak to the consequences of such activities and assume that they will take place.
District’s right to monitor usage
Related to CIPA compliance is the concept of monitoring the use of the Internet by students. The CIPA act speaks to monitoring as if monitoring is recommended, but not required on the part of a district. Much of this is owing to the need on the part of legislators to not place too much of an undue burden on school officials. However, monitoring is something that is technically more feasible now than in past years and a school district may choose to employ it. Modern tools can capture keystrokes, websites visited, and many other activities on the part of any user. Monitoring has been a defacto tactic employed by many commercial enterprises to insure both proper levels of productivity and that corporate computing resources are not being misused in a way which places the corporation at risk. Misuse can possibly include civil as well as criminal misbehavior. School districts have an equal, if not greater responsibility to insure that their computing resources are not being misused.
Monitoring can also take the form of just querying logs from the proxy server to tell how often an attempt to access sites with objectionable content are taking place vs. actually identifying which users made the attempt. The AUP should clearly spell out what will be monitored and what the information collected will be used for. Monitoring can be very controversial and while both legal and proper, can have negative ramifications within the community. Thus, the decision to monitor needs to be well communicated (thus its inclusion in the AUP) and reviewed with the superintendent and possibly the school board.
…. to be continued.
Student document creation tool choices
Posted by lou in Product Tips and FAQs on August 26th, 2009
A school district customer is evaluating document creation tools for use by their students. They are looking at Microsoft Word, Google Doc, and the tools within Connected.info and trying to determine which choice to recommend and to some extent agree to provide and support.
With respect to Connected.info, all three tools can be used by a student to author documents that can be submitted electronically in response to a homework assignment. Thus, the choice of which tool to use can be made solely on which tool does a better job at the actual creation of the document.
Microsoft Word is the current standard for many districts. As a client tool, it does not require an Internet connection to work and as such can be considered as more widely accessible to the student population. Also, the width and breadth of features for document creation can not currently be matched by any on-line tool. It simply is the king of the feature hill so to speak.
However, the cost of acquisition and support can add up for a district. Also, since the files (documents) need to be stored on a local disk, there is the issue of getting at them if they are at home or conversely at school when the student is in the other location.
Web-based document creation tools such as Google Doc, and Connected.info’s blog capability have some advantages over the use of Microsoft Word. The files are centrally stored on the Internet so as long as a student has access to the Internet, the documents can be accessed no matter where the location of the student. Moreover, both tools allow for viewing and sharing (in a sense) by other students.
Also, Google doc does allow for the editing of a document by multiple people at the same time, but there are limits to how practical that is. Connected.info does support wikis, which have a shared document / shared editing capability. However, currently a wiki can not be submitted in response to an assignment. A blog post can be commented on by other students, but only one can edit the post as the owner.
To recap -
Microsoft Word is the king of features, but its inability to store documents on the web for ease of access from multiple locations can make it an unwise choice for students.
Google Doc supports web based access of files and shared document editing and viewing. However, its features are basic and a student must be connected to the Internet to access the files. Also, there are some privacy concerns which need to be addressed when setting up the environment.
Connected.info’s Blog features are similar to Google Doc, but do not support shared document editing. It is more private than Google Doc, but also requires an Internet connection to use.
We hope this information helps you to make the best choice for your district.
Document Sharing – add to assignment or upload file into a class group?
Posted by lou in Product Tips and FAQs on August 25th, 2009
Recently, a new teacher user asked a question about what we would recommend for sharing a document with her students. She noticed that she could add a file to an assignment as well as upload that file into the class group and was curious what the pros and cons of the choice were.
First, let’s review the choices. When an assignment is loaded into Connected.info from a teacher’s gradebook software, it appears in the list of assignments for a particular course section. Depending on the gradebook, the ability to attach a document, such as a worksheet, to the assignment may not be present. Connected.info allows the attachment of any number of documents, video files, etc. to an assignment for this reason. By editing the assignment and uploading the file or files she wants, a teacher may then post the assignment to the system.
Connected.info also has a feature to allow document or file sharing within the class section group. This “document locker” is not dependent upon an assignment and as such represents a convenient place to share files which may be applicable to a number of tasks during the school term.
Which makes more sense to use? As is sometimes the case, the answer is “It depends”. Attaching a document to an assignment provides access to the document to students and their parents when they wish to work on the assignment. And, it also allows historical access to the document. What does that mean? Suppose next school year, a parent or student wants to review some of the assignments worked on this school year. The assignment is available for viewing, but the document storage for last year’s course section group may have been cleared out since the class section is no longer meeting. Also, attaching the document to an assignment provides for an in-context use of the document, whereas the document sharing feature may be less convenient.
However, document sharing does have its advantages as well. Suppose the document is applicable to more than just one assignment. It would be less convenient for the teacher to have to attach the same document to many assignments. Storing the document in the document sharing locker and referencing it in the various assignments may be more efficient for her.
The nice thing is that both features can be used when needed. Also, I would point out that both features support Connected.info “multi-post” capability where the teacher can easily add the same document to multiple course section groups at the same time, saving her from having to repeat the task for each course section.
Please keep the questions about Connected coming!