Towards Student Privacy

I have some good news: Tomorrow, I’ll be meeting with the UBC ombudsperson for students to discuss the creation of a student privacy bill of rights.

With the support of the AMS and GSS, the Digital Tattoo project is launching an initiative to create a document that will help protect student data on UBC systems.

This comes following a tweet that we received asking about such initiative and after our investigation into the ways that UBC’s learning management system collects and analyzes student data.

The focus of this bill of rights is to grant students the ability to make informed choices about their digital identities within the University context. By enabling students to understand the impact of their interactions within digital systems at UBC, they’ll be better positioned to make choices about how they conduct their online lives outside of the University.

UBC, as an educational institution, should extend teaching into all realms of academic life—including how students are treated within our learning management systems.

By allowing students to make informed choices about what information they give away, by educating them about how this information is going to be used, and by providing them with ongoing updates regarding any changes to this agreement, UBC will not only be fulfilling its mandate to educate students, but will also achieve a more ethical means of consent with students by making transparency integral to the process.

In addition, UBC will be able to distinguish itself as a leader amongst universities by implementing a progressive system that respects student privacy, seeks to achieve an ethical means of consent, and provides students with the opportunity to better understand how their digital identities are being constructed.

So the importance of the initiative is three-fold:

1. Protecting the privacy of students within UBC
2. Providing an opportunity to educate students about how their digital identities are constructed through their interactions with online systems
3. Achieving a more ethical means of consent with students by providing information and options

If you also support these measures, please help by sharing our initiative through social media.

A little background

If you’re not convinced by the above or are still a little confused, let’s rewind a bit. What exactly is a learning management system at UBC? That’s the system that hosts all of the electronic learning materials for courses. Currently, it’s called Blackboard Connect, but that’s about to change.

Right now, Blackboard Connect collects a lot of data about students, including the pages that you visit, the time you spend on those pages, where you’ve clicked, and then organizes this data and presents it to instructors and administrators so they can understand how students are learning and using the system. Great, in theory.

But what if instructors are viewing this data and making inferences about the participation of students based on their usage in comparison to other students in the course? This could be easily done, as Connect presents the data of individuals in comparison to the class. So how might this affect a student without the resources to be constantly logging into Connect? Not very well.

The current system is not perfect and most of what’s collected through Connect is useless. The organization and comprehension of this data is called Learning Analytics and UBC’s current LMS isn’t capable of doing anything productive with the data—even though it may claim to use this information to identify struggling students and lend assistance. When I asked about being directed towards a case if this actually happening, no evidence or examples could be produced.

Okay, so that’s the current system. Massive amounts of data are being collected about students for relatively no reason and no useful purpose. Great. But what about the new system?

Some foreground

Well, it’s not an LMS anymore: UBC now has a Learning Technology Environment. Hurray! It’s called Canvas by Instructure.

With the launch of Canvas, UBC will be ramping up its focus on Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining. I mean, if you’ve just spent lots of money on a new toy, you might as well put it to use, right?

But here’s where I get concerned. We’ve already been collecting and analyzing huge amounts of student data without any benefit to students. Now, we’re ramping up this collection and analysis without putting the proper safeguards in place that will allow students to control and understand what information they’re giving away, how it’s being stored, and why it’s all happening.

And that’s why UBC, at this crucial juncture in time, needs to create a policy around how student data is being collected, stored, and used. Students should be prompted to opt-in to data collection and informed about what that means. At any time, they should be able to access their data and be allowed to make the decisions about what information they choose to give.

And that’s why UBC, at this crucial juncture in time, needs to create a policy around how student data is being collected, stored, and used.

Currently, UBC students are consenting to this data collection by simply logging into the system. That’s right: By accessing the course materials that are essential to completing your degree requirements at a public, post-secondary institution, you’re also consenting to giving away your data. If this surprises you, it should be an indication of a fundamental flaw in how UBC is currently going about generating consent.

And it gets worse. I uncovered in their terms of service, which aren’t readily available on the log-in page, that UBC is free to update their terms of service at any time without notifying students about the changes. Your continued use of the system is consent enough. This logic basically amounts to: Because we’re already forcing you to use this system, we can also take your data in the meantime, and if we feel like changing that, your continued use is consent enough. This is the definition of forced consent.

Protecting student privacy through instituting a policy that mandates informed consent at UBC isn’t about stifling the potential benefits of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining; it’s about protecting the privacy of students who are bettering themselves by studying at a world-class institution like UBC. This is about leading the way by creating a policy that goes beyond the outdated provincial and federal laws and is forward-looking, progressive, and, most importantly, puts the privacy and safety of students before anything else.