Week 3 Readings and Resources

Public Apps and Privacy

So, you found the perfect application and now you want to build it into your course - yay!

Oops - in order to use it students have to create an account.  Does the application sit on a Canadian server?  If not, do you need students to give informed consent or might you have to offer an alternative assignment or learning activity to those who object to creating an account on a server that sits outside of Canada?

So many people of all ages and walks of life seem perfectly happy to create Facebook or Twitter accounts or use other social networking and collaborative tools - do we really need to worry about this?

How about public tools that do not require an account?  For instance, they contribute their ideas to a Google Doc that someone with an account has created and made public. Can a student object to or refuse to participate because their work is public?

British Columbia has some of the strictest FOIPOP rules in Canada.  Do you know what they are?  Does your institution have additional policies that restrict or encourage use of third party tools?

Lots to work out over the next few years!