There have been many recent instances of privacy violations, financial aid theft, and other forms of fraud, all using the personal information of both online and traditional college students, that online students need to be proactive and become their own advocates to protect themselves and their personal information.
The Harvard Privacy Scandal
In one high-profile case, the sharing of private student information at Harvard University, by the university’s own professors, has left colleges and universities reeling over the need to secure online data and ensure student privacy, which is guaranteed under federal law. The “Harvard Privacy Scandal” erupted when sociologists at Harvard released to the public some of the data it had collected from an anonymous group of students, in a data collection they titled “Tastes, Ties, and Time.”
This data collection includes the Facebook profiles of the 1700 students, believed to be members of Harvard’s Class of 2009. While the open access features of Facebook allowed researchers a whole new cache of often elusive data about race, ethnicity, gender, income, cultural tastes, etc., for many it raised a central question about how much privacy protection students need, and how they can secure their own information.
Everything Students Do Is Available Online
For online students, awareness of this problem is even more important, because everything they do is available on line: from personal financial data to class assignments, an intrepid hacker can access just about anything. This is one of the reasons why FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) is so important.
FERPA guarantees that your academic information, including grades on all work as well as final grades, must remain confidential. But this is not cut-and-dry: There are instances when student grade information can be shared if it is necessary to help a student reach educational goals. For example, I can share a student grade with an academic advisor when I am concerned about a student’s performance and think that student can benefit from tutoring or other support services.
When Sharing Information Helps
Also, extreme circumstances sometimes warrant the sharing of personal student information. I once had an extended email conversation with a dean at my college about the psychological status of a student who had shared with me his despondence, desire to drop out, and suicidal feelings. I have never regretted sharing this information, because it saved his life.
The Dean intervened by making sure that a counselor reached out to this student, who was in very serious condition, and the student got the help he needed. A few semesters later, I ran into him on campus; he was a senior, ready to graduate, and was looking forward to the rest of his life. This is an example of one of the very few instances when federal law provides some elasticity in what faculty and administrators can share about students—because it’s about a student’s welfare.
This is very different from when I was in college, when it was routine for faculty members to post social security numbers and their grades on a list outside their office doors, so that students could stop by any time to find out what grade their work earned. It was also standard practice for professors to leave graded papers in a box outside their office, so that students could pick their papers up anytime.
I was never one of those students who took the time to flip through all the papers to see what grades my colleagues earned, because I was usually too anxious to see my grade—but I knew many students who routinely looked at all the paper grades, to see where their work stood in relation to the rest of the class.
5 Simple Steps To Take
For online students, this situation is even more complicated, because all work and class communication is done via online learning management systems such as Blackboard and Moodle, or through email. Here are some proactive steps you can take to be your own advocate and protect your privacy in online classes:
Do not “over-share”
We are so used to the casual nature of emails, tweets, and Facebook updates that it is easy to forget that, even if you are sitting on your sofa in your pajamas, online classes are professional environments.
While federal law provides students with the right to share personal information, not only are you under no obligation to share the details of your personal life, you really should not share such issues as personal medical information, prescriptions you are taking, financial data, and other personal issues that you do not want to become public knowledge. In group work, be careful about how much you tell other people about yourself.
Delete contact information
Use online search tools to discover what is out there on the Internet about you, and delete all personal information, such as contact information.
Do you want the people in your classes to know where you live, what your phone number is, etc.? Email should be sufficient contact information for anyone in your classes.
Install spyware and malware protection
Protect your work by protecting the security of your computer and network.
Anything you search for, type into, or access on your computer can be monitored; protect your work from theft, your personal information from identity theft, and your personal reputation by controlling your work environment.
Do not allow a faculty member to share information about you
No one likes confronting an instructor, but there are times when everyone makes a mistake. In the midst of an online discussion, it is possible that a faculty member could write something like, “That kind of deep analysis is why you got an A on your last paper!” As flattering as that is, it’s just as dangerous as writing, “If you would let go of your outdated ideas and do the reading, you might score more than a D on your next paper!”
Both statements provide information about an individual student that should not be public information. Also, online faculty members are not allowed to share grades with students via email. That is a violation of FERPA, because e-mail is not as secure as the course management system. Gentle reminders to faculty, in the form of a question, are the best way to advocate for your privacy. A message that reads, “I didn’t know it was OK to share grades in e-mail!” will garner a much more positive—and apologetic—message from yuour instructor than a accusatory message.
Avoid discussions about where you work
In her thesis on online student privacy, Charlotte Stange writes (pdf) that “Students were overall very hesitant to fully disclose workplace examples and experiences in their discussion because of the sensitivity of the information to them, and because they were not assured that information they share could not be used outside of the online classroom.”This is a good practice to adopt. You simply do not know who in your class might end up as your co-worker someday, and might remember that time you described your boss as incompetent—and they just might share that.
While it’s tempting to use examples from your own work and life experience in your class discussions, make sure that you remain aware that if you wouldn’t say it freely in life or work, then you shouldn’t say it freely online.
Having said all this, I want to remind you that the Internet is still relatively safe, and encourage you to go ahead and fully participate in your online courses. I realize that it’s easy to become paranoid about the risks of sharing information online, but by taking the time to practice these few simple safeguards, your personal information should be secure.
Also, these tips will help you develop good habits and create a worry-free environment in which to purse your educational and intellectual development. You can use these as a springboard from which you can develop your own plan to advocate for yourself. Taking control is often the best form of self-protection there is, and self-advocacy helps you do that.
The old saying “better to be safe than sorry” definitely applies in the age of the Internet!
About The Author
Jill Rooney, Ph.D. is an education writer for OnlineColleges.net. After earning an undergraduate degree in Secondary Education and a Ph.D. in History, Dr. Rooney taught History, Political Science, and General Education college courses at state universities, small private colleges, community colleges, and for-profit colleges.
An experienced educator with expertise in American politics, Dr. Rooney has also published articles in publications by the Smithsonian Institution, Oxford University Press, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Her teaching experience has taught her that all students really just want one thing: To learn. And that isn’t always easy, so she’s here to help!
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