e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Category: Policy

  • Piazza Makes Three Significant Changes To Deal With Privacy Issues

    Piazza Makes Three Significant Changes To Deal With Privacy Issues

    For those following the Piazza privacy issues, we have a new update where the company has made three significant changes in their response to privacy concerns from several universities. They are now using true opt-in for their Careers product, they have stopped the practice of using university logos without permission, and they are now offering an easier process to enter into no-cost agreements. For those who have not followed, read here here and here for background. And remember that this case of Piazza’s usage of student data can be seen as a case study on third-party learning apps as we move closer to the Next Generation Digital Learning Environment / LMS as Hub concept.

    Opt-In vs Opt-Out

    In my original post, one of the key issues I called out was that Piazza did not offer with their Q&A platform a true opt-in method for students to choose to allow their personal data to be shared with recruiters through the Careers product.

    What does that opt-in look like in practice? Faculty assign usage of the platform, and during setup students see a pre-checked box labeled “Sign me up” for opting into the Careers service. (more…)

  • Digging Deeper Into CCSF Story: $39 million for non-usage of LMS not really about DE

    When I wrote my initial post on Tuesday about the City College of San Francisco (CCSF) having to repay the state $39 million for non-usage of LMS, there was one number that kept bugging me.

    We’re not talking about an isolated problem with some faculty forgetting or refusing to use the official LMS. 92% of all courses (based on FTES count) did not comply with collegiate policy, and therefore there are no official participation records ensuring students understood the course requirements or that faculty interacted with students.

    The original San Francisco Chronicle article described the problem as occurring “in hundreds of online classes from 2011 to 2014”, and the independent audit document describes their charge to “review compliance of contact hours claimed for distance education” by CCSF. But 92% of faculty choosing to not use the campus LMS for an online course goes beyond sloppy processes or faculty resistance. There had to be more to the story. (more…)

  • Analytics Literacy is a Major Limiter of Ed Tech Growth

    Whatever else you think of the election, it has been the mother of all teachable moments for many of us. It has raised questions about what we thought we knew about our democracy, our neighbors, our media…and apparently learning analytics. The shock of the polls being “wrong” has raised a lot of questions about how much we can really trust data analytics. Audrey Watters has written the most fleshed out critique that I’ve seen so far. But Dave Cormier tweeted about it as well. And I have had several private conversations along these lines. They all raise the question of whether we put too much faith in numerical analysis in general and complex learning analytics in particular. That is an excellent question. But in doing so, some of these arguments position analytics in opposition to narratives. That part is not right. Analytics are narratives. They are stories that we tell, or that machines tell, in order to make meaning out of data points. The problem is that most of us aren’t especially literate in this kind of narrative and don’t know how to critique it well.

    This is going to be a wide-ranging post that goes a little lit crit at times and dives into an eclectic collection of topics from election polling to the history of medicine. But even the most pragmatic, b-school-minded entrepreneur or VC may find some value here. Because what I’m ultimately talking about is a fundamental limiter on the future growth of the ed tech industry. The value of learning analytics, and therefore the market for them, will be limited by the data and statistical literacy of those who adopt it. The companies that are focused on developing fancier algorithms are solving the wrong problem—at least for now. These tools will have limited adoption until they are put into the hands of educators who understand their uses and limitations. And we have a long way to go in that department.

    (more…)

  • Piazza Response To Blog Post On Student Privacy

    Based on Thursday’s blog post “Popular Discussion Platform Piazza Getting Pushback For Selling Student Data”, Piazza’s CEO Pooja Sankar invited me to meet at their offices Friday afternoon. Given the nature of Thursday’s post, I offered to publish any statement that Piazza had in response here at e-Literate, an offer they accepted. I will defer further analysis for a few days.  – PH

    Update: In the process of making copy-editing changes, we accidentally temporarily removed links accessibility and FERPA compliance documentations. They have been restored to the current draft.

    Sorry about that.

    Statement From Piazza CEO Pooja Sankar

    We at Piazza take our obligations to our community of students, professors, and institutions of higher education very seriously. We cherish and safeguard the privacy of our community. But we made a mistake by not engaging and responding to a way befitting of the trust placed in us. Many of our 1500 Universities reached out quite reasonably to enter into legal agreements for the free service. But as a lean, sub-30 person company without in-house legal, we were overwhelmed with all the (expensive) requests for one-off contracts (for a free Q&A service). We handled it poorly. This unfortunately gave people the impression that we were arrogant. You deserve better. We can do better. (more…)

  • Popular Discussion Platform Piazza Getting Pushback For Selling Student Data

    Update– Please see follow-on posts addressing changes since this post:

    Piazza is a collaborative question-and-answer platform that is “completely free” and can easily integrate into an institutional LMS, or in some cases replace the LMS. In our interviews for e-Literate TV, we have heard several glowing reviews about student engagement increasing thanks to the nature of the collaborative discussions. But in a case study of the aphorism that “if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product”, there are some significant privacy concerns around student data being sold, and several universities are pushing back.

    The source of the dispute is not one of a vendor getting caught selling or sharing data behind the scenes, however. Piazza is quite open about their ongoing usage of student data to generate revenue – in their privacy policy, in their click-through terms of service, and throughout their web site. The source of the dispute is Piazza’s lenient interpretation of privacy concerns and their apparent unwillingness to comply with institutional policies or guidance on student data privacy. (more…)

  • College Scorecard: With victories like these, who needs failures?

    Goldie Blumenstyk had a fascinating interview with the Depart of Education’s Ted Mitchell on Friday that is well worth reading and / or watching (they have video of the interview along with full transcript). One of Mitchell’s key points jumped off the page for me.

    I think it [College Scorecard] was one of the department and the administration’s greatest victories

    Really? I can see the consolidation of student loans, a strong focus on college affordability, shifting of conversation away from just elite schools, and significant push on funding public schools as worthy victories to mention. But the College Scorecard – I don’t buy it.

    Blumenstyk pushed back on Mitchell, which led to this interesting exchange [emphasis added].

    GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK: I’m glad you mentioned the College Scorecard. I was thinking about that a little bit. It’s probably one of the places where the department had perhaps its biggest defeat, or maybe you might consider it a retreat. We were originally envisioning the Scorecard as a tool for accountability. Obviously, a lot of colleges and a lot of other people opposed that idea. And it became a complicated process even to create the effective scorecard. What did you learn from that process?

    TED MITCHELL: So I guess I would have a slightly different interpretation.

    GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK: I would imagine. (more…)

  • IHE Essay: Getting the political facts straight about State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement

    The following essay, co-written by Russ Poulin and Phil Hill, was originally published at Inside Higher Ed in response to articles in the New York Times and Inside Higher Ed regarding whether New York state should sign the SARA agreement.

    A coalition of consumer groups, legal aid organizations and unions object to the state of New York joining an agreement that would change how colleges offering distance education courses in the state would be regulated. As coalition members asserted in an Inside Higher Ed article, the state would be ceding its authority to other states. Students would be left with no protection from predatory colleges and it would make it easier for “bad actors to take advantage of students and harder for states to crack down on them.”

    That all sounds ominous. It would be, if it were true.

    Even in the digital era, the regulation of educational institutions is left to each state. The resulting array of requirements confuses both students and institutional faculty and staff. The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) was created to apply consistent review standards across the states. An institution approved in its home state is eligible to enroll students (within limits) in any other SARA member state. As of this writing, 36 states have joined in a little over two years. That number may approach 45 by the end of 2016.

    (more…)