Big University?

The balance between university and privacy

Two weeks ago, Minister of the Interior Kajsa Ollongren spoke about the new Intelligence and Security Services Act, the WIV. This new law allows the intelligence services to perform more thorough investigations and thereby invade further into the private life of (potentially innocent) citizens. There was a large turnout: only by using a second room with a video link, all attendants could be seated. It makes clear that privacy is a hot topic these days. Not only because of this ‘dragnet law’ and the related referendum on March 21st, but also the new European Data Protection Regulations generate a lot of interest for privacy. Even though there is much attention on a national level, we miss that same attention at a place very close to us: the university. Especially students often aren’t part of the considerations about their privacy. That has to change.

More than a building

The university has become more than just a building where you come to study. Thanks to Blackboard and other digital services, the university is always available. Subsequently, the university has come a lot closer to its students and knows a lot more about them thanks to all the digital services. They know when you hand in your assignment, when you watch lecture recordings and thanks to the usage of Google Analytics, Google also knows when you’re studying. At the moment the university only uses these data to maintain their systems, but there is a lot more to be deducted from them. That is why the university wants to use it for other purposes in the near future. But what do we deem acceptable? Would it be good to check if students read everything that is posted on Blackboard? And should the university be allowed to give you less points on “active attendance” if you don’t read everything? These are questions that teachers, board members and service departments are answering, even though the students will notice the consequences directly.

Analyzing your analytic skills (and more)

Regarding new applications, learning analytics are the new hype. They use the data the university already collects to map out your study behavior. Your high school grades, your current grades and your activity on Nestor are combined to make predictions. For example, they will predict what parts of a course you find hard, if you will pass the course and if you will face a study delay. Using this information a teacher should be able to help you better. Furthermore, students bound for a study delay can be asked to contact the study advisor. That sounds nice, but it also means that the university gets a pretty complete picture of your life. Moreover, in the future the university could decide to exclude you from upcoming exams if you don’t study by the book every week. The balance between support and determining your study behavior becomes evermore important. That balance can only be found when students are involved in the discussion.

Do you really have a choice?

Supporters of these new technologies will tell you that students have the choice whether to use these analytics or not. But being able to make that choice is under pressure from that same technology. In the past, teachers themselves had to check essays for plagiarism. Nowadays, we use plagiarism scanners. Students don’t have to choice to not use them, even though that means that have to waive some of the copyright on their own work. In this case, this could be a reasonable trade-off as academic integrity is regarded as more important. But when students are followed closely and the resulting data is used as a basis for measures like excluding students from exams, the appraisal is likely to be different.

Due to the changing role of the university, rapid technological developments with large consequences for students and the lack of choice, it is important to speak about the university and privacy now. That way, ‘Big University‘ won’t silently create its own ‘dragnet’.

Lijst Calimero takes the initiative by organizing a pub lecture on this subject together with ASCI, the study association for Information Science students. Keep a close eye on our Facebook page for more details. We would love to hear your opinion on this matter, so we can draw attention to students’ privacy within the university.