As classrooms and exams move online, the role of privacy has been thrust into the spotlight. From articles reporting students feeling "creeped out" by online proctors to students refusing to be assessed online, robust privacy policies play a central role in ensuring students can still make progress towards their degree from the safety of their home. Tune in today to learn about different types of privacy, who should participate in framing new privacy policies, the difference between privacy and policy, and to learn whether you're a data processor or data controller. Guests Eric Connolly, Vice President of Client Development with ExamSoft and Devon Lash, IT administrator at the Binghamton University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences join Allison to talk privacy and to get you up to speed for a successful fall with robust policies in place.
As classrooms and exams move online, the role of privacy has been thrust into the spotlight. From articles reporting students feeling "creeped out" by online proctors to students refusing to be assessed online, robust privacy policies play a central role in ensuring students can still make progress towards their degree from the safety of their home. Tune in today to learn about different types of privacy, who should participate in framing new privacy policies, the difference between privacy and policy, and to learn whether you're a data processor or data controller. Guests Eric Connolly, Vice President of Client Development with ExamSoft and Devon Lash, IT administrator at the Binghamton University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences join Allison to talk privacy and to get you up to speed for a successful fall with robust policies in place.
Britt (00:00:00):
Pedagogo, the show that brings education to your ears and metamastery to your assessments. With several insightful interviews, today's episode covers privacy in this age of virtual classrooms and proctored assessments. When the tests have cameras, is your school ready for its closeup? Pedagogo brought to you by ExamSoft, the assessment software that keeps security and integrity in your exams while providing you actionable data for your outcomes when creating the testing seems tough. ExamSoft gives you rainbows so you can pass your students with flying colors.
Allison Case:
Hey Education Nation! Thanks for joining us for the final episode of Season 1 of Pedagogo.! Today’s episode is about privacy and the opportunities programs have to use the break before Fall classes to stay up to date with the ever-evolving education landscape due to COVID-19. To talk to us today about privacy, I am joined by Eric Connelly, Vice President of Client Development with ExamSoft and Devon Lash, IT administrator at the Binghamton University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. To kick us off, let’s listen to my interview with Eric Connelly. Eric works with clients on a daily basis developing best practices and finding solutions for their challenges. He has seen first-hand the importance of robust privacy policies and what can happen without them. Take a listen.
Allison Case
Let me off by asking a very basic question. How is privacy different than security?
Eric Connelly
Well, they certainly uh, intermingle and overlap in a lot of areas. Privacy is mainly about what data is collected, how it's used. Uh, and generally when you think of security, it's how is that data protected and secured from unauthorized use or access? Right. So, one is what are we collecting, how are we using it, what's its application? And the other is how is that data being secured and how is it being protected from folks that should not be seeing it?
Allison Case
Are there different types of privacy?
Eric Connelly
There are in the sense that certain industries or verticals are governed by various entities. Within those types of industries that have that additional parent body overseeing privacy such as HIPAA, FERPA, there's going to be very stringent requirements about how that information can be used, what it can be used for, and the importance of being compliant with those in order to participate in those industries.
Allison Case
So, Eric, talk to me and the listeners. Why are we having an additional conversation beyond FERPA?
Eric Connelly
Well, I think to answer your question, I think the biggest reason why we are having this conversation right now, uh, is primarily due to COVID-19 and the rapid change of education as it's moved from being in a traditional classroom to all of a sudden having to deliver, uh, distance learning and remote assessment.
Eric Connelly (02:49)
Uh, and then that brings in additional technology such as remote proctoring, right? The students started campus at the beginning of the year, assuming a normal education experience. And now all of a sudden things are rapidly disrupted. And I’m having to continue to prove that I have absorbed that material, but I’m having to do it in a completely different modality. So, things I might not have thought about as a student prior to are now all of a sudden, you know, front and center in the spotlight. So, I'm thinking about “hold on now and being proctored”.
Eric Connelly
“What are they doing with my information? I'm being assessed. How is that information being used? I'm absorbing content through a learning management system. What are they collecting about me?” It's new. Um, so it's front and center and kind of at the top of my mind as a student and it's not necessarily what I signed up for at the beginning of the year. So that while I may not object to the unique challenges being thrust upon higher education, I have common questions and I just want basic answers as to how this information is being used because I didn't go into this school year anticipating that I'd be giving consent to these types of things.
Allison Case
Absolutely. Eric, you might not know the answer to this question, but your response just really piqued my interest. When did students sign up for this? Or when should they, or when do they need to?
Eric Connelly
Well, that takes us into certainly a, a deeper conversation about academic policy and university policy. Um, but typically when you think about it from in generic terms, from a student experience standpoint, when you start with a university, you're typically signing some kind of honor code accepting some sort of academic policy. And the real question, and I think the direction that your question asks is, are these types of things covered in that?
Allison Case
Right.
Eric Connelly
Uh, so “was I informed? Does the school have a distance learning policy” and all of these types of new questions? And the answer is maybe they do, maybe they don't, because nobody anticipated being in this situation.
Allison Case
Right
Eric Connelly
Um, so now it leaves everybody in the industry, whether you're on the technology side or you're on the academic side of making sure that we address those concerns and that we disclose that information.
Allison Case
So, this summer might be a good time to go back and look and say, “hey, did our original policy do all we wanted it to do for these changing times?”
Eric Connelly
Absolutely. Look, from our position from on the technology side, working with close to 2,000 clients across the world, it's safe to say that many of those institutions have not taught in a remote setting before and they may not even have policy that speaks to this type of scenario. And if that's the case, everybody's goal, I think, uh, in wrapping up the spring semester or the academic year that for many places around the world ends around this May timeframe. The goal was to survive and quickly adapt and do the best that we all could with a situation we never saw coming.
Eric Connelly (5:58)
However, now that we're through that, this, this summer term in the United States or breaks in other parts of the world is a good time to address maybe where those gaps are in academic policy and say, “okay, when we come, when we resume teaching, um, are we going to be in a position to where we will now have distance learning as a regular part of our curriculum?” Will we have some kind of hybrid model or will everybody be incoming coming back to campus and do we have policies that speak to the expectations not only from faculty but from students, uh, in regard to those different types of modalities and delivery? And if the answer is, we don't, this would be the perfect time to address some of those shortcomings and academic policy.
Allison Case
Absolutely. Well, gosh, in talking to Devon, my other guest for today, even once a program has a well-informed privacy policy that takes the new environment into account, just making sure that students have an opportunity, one to hear it to, two understand it, and then a forum to ask their questions to put their mind at ease. The, the discussion around privacy is much more than getting the airtight policy drafted, but it's communicating it to students, so they understand it, look at it as a tool to continue their education remotely and don't fear it.
Eric Connelly (7:03)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean this is the opportunity to be proactive. Whereas I think we're coming out of the last couple of months where, as an industry, we've largely been reactive and the importance of being proactive from both the faculty and student perspective is exactly what you just talked about. And that is, how can we communicate, um, not only what requirements are, but what expectations are and why is that important?
Eric Connelly
I think what we tend to um, veer away from in a reactive mode is the “why”, and the rationale behind what's required, where as when we can be a little bit more proactive, we have more time to explain and help both faculty and students through the rationale behind the decisions that are being made. So, for example, if you are going to assess
Allison Case
Right
Eric Connelly
In a remote environment on a high stakes assessment, the requirement of proctoring becomes equally important not only to ensure academic integrity but also to ensure program integrity and to ensure outcomes and fairness and all of these things we take for granted when it's done
Allison Case
Absolutely
Eric Connelly
In a campus environment. But when we don't have the ability or the foresight to be able to explain all of those “whys” behind something like remote proctoring, for example, then that tends to get lost in the conversation.
Eric Connelly
Instead shifts to, well, “I don't want my information collected and how is my information being used”? And it's, it becomes very personal and rightfully so. I mean, these are all great questions that students should be asking, but at the same time, a lot of it just comes from a misunderstanding of why it's important in the first place. Right? And how it enhances their degree
Allison Case
Right
Eric Connelly
And how it validates their degree. And some of those pieces sometimes get lost.
Eric Connelly
And additionally, the last thing I would add to that, is it becomes equally important to the university from an accreditation standpoint.
Allison Case
Right
Eric Connelly (9:19)
Our accreditors are going to come to us now or at some point in the future and they're going to want to know that those outcomes that took place in a remote environment, uh, were just as meaningful as if they were in a classroom environment.
Allison Case
And what a message if, if done well, if university administration, yeah, take the time to have a well-informed privacy policy, communicate it to students in a way that's understandable, open themselves up for student feedback, what a gift to give a student to know that your instructors, your program and your university, took your privacy seriously and made well-informed decisions about how to enable you to continue in your degree while still respecting your personal data.
Eric Connelly
Exactly, and it works best when everybody is collaborating and working together on that approach. Which is something that a lot of institutions have time for right now is how do we involve our student government in this decision making? How do we involve all of our faculty and the various stakeholders to participate in this process so that we all have a clear understanding of what the expectations need to be, but also the rationale behind those expectations?
Allison Case
I've heard somebody even suggest the idea of a student bill of rights when it comes to privacy. What is fair to expect from your program while not handcuffing them to such rigorous privacy standards that no product, service, tool meet those requirements.
Eric Connelly (10:44)
I do want to define somewhat privacy versus policy, right?
Allison Case
Please
Eric Connelly
Because when, when we're talking on the university side, a lot of times we're talking about policy itself. In other words, this is our academic policy for delivering and a distance learning environment. And the reason why that's important is because, um, the university is, is already bound by privacy via FERPA and typically technology companies that are in higher education, I know ours is one of them, are bound by those same requirements. Um, so there are protections in place on the privacy side and not only in what can be collected, but how it can be used. And what can be disclosed. And disclosure is a lot of what FERPA deals with. But from a university perspective, it's really more about policy. And what I mean by that is what is our academic policy? So, if we're going to deliver, uh, education and assessment and proctoring in a remote environment,
Allison Case
Mm-hmm
Eric Connelly
Then there are certain requirements and policies that are required of the student to be successful in that type of environment that may not have existed in a classroom environment, for example.
Eric Connelly
Um, minimum system requirements for a computer become much more important so that the technology works for everybody. A policy for how we are going to handle
Allison Case
Mm-hmm
Eric Connelly
Exceptions becomes very important, uh, policy for what requirements are going to be an absolute requirement for a student to participate in distance learning versus which ones may not be absolute requirements. But when you get into the proctoring of a high stakes assessment, your policy may be much more rigid, which is an order to participate and take this exam, you must be willing to be remote proctor.
Eric Connelly (12:31)
In the world of proctoring, a technology provider is providing a specific service saying we are going to capture video and in exchange we are going to provide this service. So, the policy, their privacy policy is very defined around we're collecting this information A in order to provide service B, but typically the university is actually the owner of that data. And what that means is that they control that data and the technology company is typically defined as a processor of that data.
Allison Case
Hmm
Eric Connelly
So, the way this all ties together and becomes important from an academic policy standpoint is let's say a student says, I'm not going to consent to video being captured of me for the purposes of proctoring. The university needs a policy to say, if in that event is that a requirement for the student, are we still going to allow them to take that assessment or is that a requirement of the program and they simply can't participate in the program if they don't accept that policy.
Eric Connelly (13:31)
So, all of a sudden that question becomes really important because if that perspective student reached out to the technology provider and says, “I don't consent”, the technology providers just going to turn around to the institution and say, “what do you want us to do”? You're the data controller here. We do what you tell us to, what do you want us to do? And so typically we're an institution may get in trouble is when they don't have a policy that speaks to what they want to do. So, I think oftentimes they look to the technology company to satisfy that student concern. It's actually our responsibility to ask the university.
Allison Case
That’s right, that’s right
Eric Connelly
How they would like us to satisfy that concern. And that's why that policy piece becomes so important. It’s important to have parameters as to what's a requirement for this particular program and this type of modality versus what's not necessarily a requirement, but a best practice.
Allison Case (14:13)
Eric, your answers just opened my eyes so much We're not talking about a privacy policy. There's not going to be a blanket privacy policy. Like you've articulated, there's going to be policies and procedures just to carry on in an online class and perhaps separate or more stringent policies around a high stakes assessment. So, when we're using this term privacy and policy, what we really mean is a set, or a portfolio, of policies that are going to dictate the privacy um of student information.
Eric Connelly (14:44)
And it's important I think not only for the institution but for the students to know what that policy is. For the first time people are asking, well hold on, “what am I consenting to?” Instead of just providing that basic blanket consent.
Allison Case
I agree, that’s right
Eric Connelly
And that's a really great, that's actually a really good thing. I think it's great that students and faculty are asking those types of questions. To put it in the context of our overall conversation, though, the more we can disclose that proactively and provide the rationale as to why, the fewer questions and interruptions it's going to cause in the moment.
Allison Case
Well and Eric, your comment also made me realize when we're talking about a portfolio of policies, not the policy, and to the elements that need to be included, including what is collected, how is it used? How is it stored, for how long? What are my rights to view it? Can I ask, if I'm a student, can I ask to see all of the personally identifiable information my university has on me? How long are they keeping it and where are they storing it? So, my goodness, this becomes, um, just such an involved, but important question and discussion.
Eric Connelly
It’s a very important topic. Yeah. And I think where it ties into the greater picture of higher education in general is an, as folks are planning, especially this summer for what may be a new normal in the fall, I think the place it all ties together is um, it's important not only to, not to develop those policies in a vacuum, right? So, because those policies are going to tie to how you plan to deliver learning. Um, so
Eric Connelly
It really starts with a planning exercise from beginning to end, which is this is the subject matter.
Eric Connelly (16:34)
This is how we're going to deliver it in a remote capacity, which may look very different from how we delivered it in a campus capacity. I think most folks familiar with distance learning will tell you that that modality, uh, has to be delivered differently to be absorbed to the same effectiveness as what you might have in a classroom environment.
Eric Connelly
All of those types of decisions are going to inform
Eric Connelly
What tools you need to do it effectively. How are you going to use your learning management system? How are you going to use assessment software? How are you going to use digital proctoring? And then those questions will then inform, okay, what kind of policies do we need in place for students to be effective in this environment? So, knowing, knowing that they're now going to be required to be digitally proctored,
Allison Case
That’s right
Eric Connelly
We need to make sure they have the right system requirements.
Eric Connelly
In order to meet those demands. We need to make sure that they understand the right policies, that that's a requirement in order to ensure the integrity of that particular program
Allison Case
Right
Eric Connelly
And all the other various things. Because the way it, the way it ultimately ties into privacy is you want students to have clear expectations of what's required of them and what's expected of them. Um, privacy policy is a component of that
Allison Case
Right
Eric Connelly
because you're gonna have to leverage various tools. I mean, I'm, I'm in the assessment side of the world, but there are many, many technology tools that could be leveraged throughout, uh, both campus and distance learning. Uh, that's where privacy
Eric Connelly
Ultimately falls into place because those tools need to comply with the overall expectations. But beyond that, you're only leveraging those tools to ultimately deliver on an objective. So, if you haven't defined to the objective, it's hard to know which tools best fit it.
Eric Connelly (18:05)
And therefore, what privacy policies need to be in place by the organizations that are providing those tools?
Allison Case
Well, one of my questions Eric, was going to be, where should a policy like this live? Is it when you accepted mission to the university? Is it an honor code? Is it by course? Is it by? And I think the answer is yes.
Eric Connelly (18:27)
Yeah. And I'm certainly not the expert to speak to the specifics about where it lives. The good news is, and here's what I found in working with a lot of various programs over the last month and a half as education has gone through this massive disruption, is that oftentimes universities have policies or, or to your answer of “yes to all the above”, specific programs have policies because they may have a distance learning component.
Eric Connelly (18:49)
The folks that are having heartburns right now and are trying to quickly kind of put these policies together are typically the ones that haven't dealt in distance learning before because when you talk to the distance learning programs, they say, “Oh yeah, we addressed that way back when”, it was same thing, right, when they put themselves in that position, it became a requirement in order to successfully deliver in that modality.
Allison Case (19:10)
Right. So, Eric, I'm so glad you brought this up. Can you share with us what are some of the heartburns that you've heard lately surrounding privacy?
Eric Connelly
Well, I mean the biggest one that we could continue to hammer home is, is certainly having academic policy that speaks to the expectations of students and a distance learning capacity. Because typically the pushback and the heartburns that they're running into is as, for example, um, they may have a student or a handful of students that say, “I don't consent to being digitally proctored” or “I don't consent to working in a, in a remote capacity”. And if they don't have a policy that becomes the grounding that everybody can go back to and review together to resolve that, then it becomes very difficult to resolve because there, there is no kind of law, right, that we can refer back to and say, well this is the policy that we have for delivering in this type of environment. Um, without that, everything becomes debatable. So, where that tends to snowball and how institutions sometimes get into trouble quickly, let's all band together and object to something together for these reasons.
Eric Connelly (20:20)
What's been interesting about that is that I've oftentimes found that those reasons, um, lack accuracy or uh, factual integrity to them. They could be based off of old information or misinformation. But all of that has blown up to that point because there was never an expectation set in the first place and there was never a policy in the first place or an explanation to the various technologies that will be used with perhaps links to those technology’s privacy policies. And all of that can easily be tied into a university or an institution's academic policy, right? These are the technologies that we're going to leverage in order to ensure that you are effectively learning and digesting the information that we're passing along to you.
Eric Connelly (21:06)
And here's a link to their privacy policy so that you can inform yourself as to what information they're collecting and how they're using that to provide the service that we're asking them to provide. But without all of that context and just in the vacuum of, “we are now thrusting proctoring upon this because we need to ensure that exam integrity is in place”. Just looking at it in that vacuum, the question automatically becomes, well, “who's doing the proctoring? How is it being done? What are they doing with my information? What rights do I have?” So, the whole context of the conversation gets changed because there's a lack of understanding as to how it fits into the greater objectives that are taking place.
Allison Case
Next, take a listen to my interview with Devon Lash, IT administrator at Binghamton University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Binghamton is an R1 university that is part of the SUNY, or State of New York, university system. The pharmacy program is relatively new. It enrolled its first cohort in 2017. Devon has been there since Day 1.
Devon Lash
My name is Devon Lash and I am the IT administrator at the Binghamton University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. And I oversee all of the IT operations that go with it. We have a research division that I help with. They started the pharmacy school back in about 2015-2016.
Allison Case
So, Devon, just to get us started, can you just define privacy for us? What is and isn't privacy in the world of an IT administrator?
Devon Lash
Sure, that's a very good question. Privacy has really become a big hot button topic. It means that the information that I am generating, whether that's digital, or a document, or something that I am working on, stays with me unless I want it to be shared. And that's a big key part of I think what privacy, is the knowledge of it.
Allison Case
Right. Gotcha. So, anything that you and you being user, in this instance, anything the user that's digital is generating stays with them unless they want it to be shared…as far as they know. Correct. Okay. So, here's a follow up question. According to that definition, is there privacy anywhere digitally?
Devon Lash
I would say it's very hard to find privacy. In the modern era with technology We all try our best. Nobody really wants to try to have something out there that somebody doesn't want for whatever implication, because there's a lot of information we don't want to share, especially because some of that information could be used to do harm to us. But unfortunately, I think you've hit a point that no matter how hard we try, there's no way we can assure a hundred percent privacy in a digital age. So, to your question, yeah, I don't think, yeah, anything can be 100% private. And a lot of times, like we've seen what happened with the GPDR where they now have started in the European Union realizing that big companies like Google, Apple, Facebook had all this information on users, and they didn't let them know.
Devon Lash (24:27)
And it wasn't in the bylaws or in the at what they call on our end would be the end user license agreement and they never shared it. So how could you expect somebody to know and if anybody's read an end user license agreement, first off, I applaud you because those things are very long and normally it's just scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, accept. And that's fair because they actually did a study on this once and they gave it to college students, an end user license agreement and it was stumping college students of like what's the terminologies in this? It's very convoluted. It's very wordy, and ultimately if you don't have some basis, how do you really know what it means?
Allison Case (25:04)
Devon, if you could invite, so to speak to the table representatives to draft new privacy policy, who would you invite to be in the room?
Devon Lash (25:18)
I will definitely say I am no foremost expert but to be what would make sense would having, as I mentioned, university administration, presidents, provosts, VPs that are really on the upper level, ones that kind of have to represent the university on that administrative level. But also, I would probably say if there's a professional Staff Senate and a faculty council or a Faculty Senate, because they're speaking, they're speaking as educators. The staff are speaking from the day to day operational kind of part. And then I would also invite a student, body or student government or something of that nature so that way they could speak on a student part and then I'm sure that there may be some other ones in there, like maybe a university police could speak a little bit, or maybe the lawyers that could speak a little bit.
Devon Lash (26:11)
And I'm sure that there's some operational staff, whether you have a physical facilities that they could probably speak a little bit ‘cause everybody's got a part, and everybody's got a role in this.
Devon Lash
Right. That's why the crowdsourcing it get so much of these days of being able to do that because you're just having a collective mind of people contributing to one thing.
Devon Lash
And it is really hard because you have to find a balanced blend between not being so overly secure that it's cumbersome but not being so wide open that you're just, anybody can get anything at any time they want. So, to finding this sort of blend in the middle, it's like how do you bridge this gap coming forward?
Allison Case (26:51)
Where does your program's privacy policy live and where do you think it should live?
Devon Lash
Some of it's in our student handbook that they all signthat says, “here's the different things that we're able to do and this is what, what we're doing with it”. Some of it is in the syllabus, and we actually to speak about like some of the COVID related things. We actually addendum-ed all of our syllabi.
Allison Case
Okay. I was going to ask how y'all handled it. So, you made a real time change.
Devon Lash (27:21)
Yup. Academic administration, our office of academic affairs and student affairs actually went through in that with our curriculum committee. We really had a tough time with students with that in the very beginning, because a lot of students had questions going into it, and rightly so. So, for anyone who's not familiar with a pharmacy school, it's kind of like high school. Each cohort stays with each other and takes the same classes.
Devon Lash
So, each one of those cohorts had a meeting saying, “hey, we're switching to the online format. It's going to happen at this point. This is what's going on and we are going to use this service”. And a lot of them were shook-en by it quite frankly on that because it's like, “yeah, well what does that mean for us” kind of thing. “Yeah, you're telling me that. But what does that mean?” And it took a lot of work on our ends that I know I've fielded a lot of questions from students before we'd give our exam, we would put a little zoom session before so people could ask questions and we had a lot of questions coming up to that too. Saying like, well, who's watching me? Do I have to show my whole room? Could someone just chat in on this one? What if I have a question?
Devon Lash (28:26)
“What are we doing this?” Oh, very, very valid questions. And that was things that we learned as we went. And every week we had a faculty town hall slash academic task force meeting and we would bring up some of these concerns. And seeing are these things that we can address or are these things that there's just nothing we could do based on the environment that we come in and what's the way that we're going to move forward? And we did that on a weekly check all the way up through last week, which we ended finals, I believe on the 13th we had to look at alternatives and I know because I had to sit here and work with my student affairs and academic affairs administration within the pharmacy school and we had to look at that and that was one of the questions that I had and the concerns which why we eventually picked exam monitor was.
Devon Lash (29:10)
I didn't feel comfortable with having our students watched the whole time. It really depends on how you phrase things, right? A lot of that comes in instead of saying “we're watching you”, we kind of phrased it as, okay, “this service, just make sure that the grade that you got and what you did was on your own accord and you earned it”. Like we got feedback from our students on a lot of this, too. We ask them, okay, “what was good, what was bad, what did you like, what didn't you like”? And don't just say move into the online format, ‘cause we understand that wasn't a great thing. And you know, I'm sure most of them.
Allison Case
We’re right there with you. No one wants to go online in one week.
Devon Lash
What was things that you had of concerns and what were things that made you feel more comfortable? So, we did a lot of that in a six to eight week time period and I'm sure we're going to be able to push this forward because we have to prepare for the fall.
Allison Case (30:08)
When your program found out it was going to go online, and these faculty town halls began. And talking about issues related to that, and then certainly within that discussions around proctoring, in general, came up, the faculty was able to talk amongst themselves about these questions, but then students were also able to ask this faculty group questions as well.
Devon Lash
Yes, we always had it that if a student ever had a concern or a question or something, they'd either field it to, to me or our student affairs office who got a lot of the questions, who really knew a lot of what was going on or academic affairs or our, we have a director of assessment would deal with a lot of it, so we would get it from anything from test format to general administration of exams. “I'm not sure how this worked, or will I be penalized for this? Is this my fault? My dog ran through and my cat set on my laptop”, and we would poll for kind of questions to be able to bring up at these things and they were always really very useful to have, and we have some great discussions on a lot of this.
Allison Case (31:09)
And then on top of these faculty town halls to have him representatives from your program sat down with them students, each cohort, and said, “we're going to be transitioning to proctoring services”, and students were able to ask questions in real time then and then beyond that, right before each test you had a zoom call that would allow students to ask questions and be comfortable. Y'all really gleaned a lot of information and feedback from those students.
Allison Case (31:37)
What are best practices to get started?
Devon Lash
You have an information security department or even a CIO or a CSO, the chief security officer. Start asking, what are we doing about our data? What are we doing to protect my research? What are we doing to protect student data? What are we doing to protect the student information? Do we have backups? Where do the backups exist? Now, I'm not sure if they're going to be able to tell you some of this information cause I, you know, again, I can't speak for every place, right? But you can start maybe bringing up some things that may or may not have been brought up before. If you have a faculty Senate, as I mentioned before, or a faculty council, or even a staff council, a staff Senate, ask these questions. And you're going to start getting some information back. Now, I can't say what you're going to get back.
Allison Case (32:29)
But sure, she started the process.
Devon Lash
So, like we really, really have to start to really start to have an engaging conversation.
Allison Case
I'm sitting here right now listening to you talk. I am shocked that not every university in the world [inaudible] a privacy and data task force that meets regularly and begins the process of getting the ball rolling on this cause. I think once people start asking these questions and there's clarity and accessibility and accountability, I can't imagine that that task force ever stops meeting. It’s part of an ever-evolving landscape.
Devon Lash
And we actually do have some committees that are on our university level that includes faculty, staff IT. Yeah. And administration about data security at data science. We have a data science committee because we're a big research institution, we're an R1 institutions. We're very big into making sure that, you know, “what's this data mean? What is this data do? What, what classifies as PII data? What is classified as HIPAA data, what's classified as FERPA data?” Oh, we have to have a broader conversation of where does that sit and how do we protect that? We used a company called Gartner that in and did a report on this and actually looked at all of our institution for a lot of these different things and gave a report back to us and said, here's where we think some of the lapses are and that we're trying to implement.
Devon Lash (33:56)
That could even be a good option if they're looking at it because you may not have it. You may not have the manpower to do it and that's not easy. I know this is not an easy process. We have definitely seen some issues happen with our university and we've tried to make amends to them and we're trying to be as progressive as we can, but not debilitating. So, that way it's so cracked down that nothing comes in and nothing goes out kind of thing.
Allison Case (34:20)
Yeah, that's an awesome narrative, right? There is, this isn't easy and it's actually okay if you don't have the in-house manpower, there are places you can go to get it. And still conduct, these types of data gathering, that is a valuable message.
Devon Lash (34:37)
Right. And don't wait. That's the one thing I want to say. Don't feel like you have to take this on yourself and that doesn't work. Right.
Allison Case (34:43)
So, Devon, in that same vein, looking ahead to the predominance of proctoring and virtual classrooms, what changes still need to be made for fall? How are going to spend your time over the summer really getting ready?
Allison Case
Devon explained that part of his role as IT administrator is making sure student have access to and understand the technology tools they use to learn and be assessed. He typically did that in person and on campus. Listen to Devon’s suggestions on how to keep student’s technology and privacy literate when you can’t sit down with them on campus.
Devon Lash
So, I may have to use some clever methods, you know, some more interactive PowerPoints or Zoom sessions. You know, some small Zoom sessions and maybe we set up some one on one time like here, schedule a 15 minute block, you share your screen with me and I go over any questions you have to be able to see like an orientation, right? Yeah. Cause we normally do an orientation but we're really going to have to transition how that goes. You know those are things that are coming up that we're trying to plan for, and you know, try to come up with the best-case scenario.
Allison Case (34:46)
Looking ahead to a fully virtual fall, finish this sentence for me. At least at Binghamton we couldn't have done it without what? What are the three things that if somebody is trying to put a robust privacy policy in place for Fall, what are the three things, at least in your opinion, you can't do it without. I would say that you can't do it without teamwork. You can't do it without cooperation, and you can't do it without foresight. You need to have foresight? You really have to try to think about more than just the here and now.
Allison Case (36:29)
Thank you so much for joining me today for this discussion on privacy. Eric and Devon both spoke on the importance of “sharing the why” with students. In other words, contextualizing the role privacy plays in allowing students to continue progress towards their degree in the safety and comfort of their own homes, without disruption due to COVID. Both Devon and Eric also talked about the importance of developing polices in conjunction with all stake holders across campus. It’s important to allow students as well as faculty and staff from across campus to inform the privacy policies that will get programs through the “new fall” and beyond.
Allison Case
This episode wraps Season 1 of Pedagogo. Keep your eyes peeled for a bonus episode all about proctoring, but for now, let me `share a heartfelt thanks for listening to Season 1 of Pedagogo. This podcast is a labor of love that was born out of the panic surrounding COVID. Looking ahead, to a post COVID world, I look forward to joining you next season to continue talking about all thing’s education. Until then, I’m your host Allison Case. Stay safe and stay well.
Britt (37:29)
Pedagogo brought to you by ExamSoft the assessment software that keeps security and integrity in your exams while providing you actionable data for your outcomes when creating the testing seems tough. Exam soft gives you a rainbow so you can pass your students with flying colors.
Keeley Karsten
This podcast was produced by Allison Case and the ExamSoft team, audio engineering and editing by Adam Karsten and the A2K productions crew including me, Keeley Karsten. This podcast is intended as a public service for entertainment and educational purposes only and is not a legal interpretation nor statement of ExamSoft policy products or services. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts or guests of this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of ExamSoft or any of its officials, nor does any appearance on this program imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Additionally, reference to any specific product, service, or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by ExamSoft. This podcast is the property of ExamSoft worldwide and is protected under U S and international copyright and trademark laws. No other use, including without limitation reproduction, retransmission or editing of this podcast may be made without the prior written permission of ExamSoft.