Only minimal student data - HELP!

Only minimal student data - HELP!

由Rik Hall發表於
Number of replies: 3
Hi all.

Some faculty members at the university got very upset that their is student data on Moodle. They felt that it was an invasion of privacy etc. I just got this email from teh Director of IT:

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The Dean of Faculty just came by to chat with me. He was just back from a Chairs meeting where the issue of the Moodle Profile was the topic du jour.

My sense is that they would like all profile information eliminated - I explained that in that case there is no way for the system to distinguish between two people so that it would be impossible to separate people into classes etc. He acknowledged that name and email were probably acceptable. But beyond that he was pretty adamant that we should not be storing any additional information... Including information like hometown and photos that some professors have indicated they feel is very handy.

So - the upshot of this is we are going to have to try and make some changes to moodle. You may want to hit Moodle.org to see if there is any guidance on the safest ways to approach these changes, I'll try and specify them at a "business" level - you can figure out the correct technical approach to implement them. We should probably do this on the test server.
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Comments?? Suggestions??

Many thanks

Rik



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In reply to Rik Hall

Re: Only minimal student data - HELP!

由ben reynolds發表於
We have FERPA concerns, and our students are K - 12.

We upload students with their email addresses hidden, and, by default, Moodle assigns hometown to the hometown of the person uploading enrollment files. So, unless the students change hometown, they're all from Baltimore!

We use ID Number as our unique identifier because students from the same family often user the same email address.

Some students choose to reveal their emails and to add Skype, ICQ, whatever. But that's all their choice.

Interesting to speculate on whether there's a capability to hide the avatar, which would leave the photos in place for profs (teachers) but hide them from fellow students.

Also, we turned off site wide stuff like blog and tags so students only see each other in a classroom where we need them to interact.
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In reply to Rik Hall

Re: Only minimal student data - HELP!

由E. L. Cooper發表於
As much as we all worry about student profile information I am certain any school I am working for has the right to publish my profile info to students and faculty the 'privacy' issue for educators seems very odd to me. If I don't want it public I don't put it in my profile- ever.
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In reply to Rik Hall

Re: Only minimal student data - HELP!

由Colin Matheson發表於
One thing we do (11-18 year olds) is make the profile un viewable to guests. This means only students and staff can see the profile info. (Security->Site Policies)

You can also "lock" user fields (Users->Authentication->Manual accounts (or however you set up accounts) so that students cannot add certain types of contact info. (better to teach them about what types of information they would like public and the consequences of certain info becoming public)

If you want to remove profile picture from the profile page you can fairly easily hack the page to not display profile picture or description.

HOWEVER, the walled garden social network is a valuable teaching tool and I highly recommend allowing your students and staff to interact in the safe and secure environment.

http://www.moodlenews.com/2010/how-moodles-social-networking-features-became-a-virtual-hangout%E2%80%9D-for-students-by-cytochromec/


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