Unexpected Legal and Policy Issues Related to Community Building

Efforts

Dale Voorhees

University of Central FloridaEducause November 2003

Dale Voorhees, Copyright 2003.

In an effort to encourage student-to-student and student-to-faculty community building, the University of Central Florida (UCF) created eCommunity.

As this tool grew in popularity, so did legal and policy issues related to its use.

eCommunity

eCommunity: What It Does

• An eCommunity account is automatically created each semester for all classes.

• Students can view a list of all students in each class they are taking.

• Faculty and students can email any (or all) students in their class.

• Students and faculty can learn about each other.• Faculty and students can see the photos of each

other.

eCommunity: Why Students Like It

• They get to know each other better.

• They can contact each other more easily.

• They don’t have to fill out a “getting to know you” sheet in every class they take!

eCommunity: Why Faculty Like It

• They can learn the names and faces of all their students even before class begins!

• They can contact the entire class or individual students even before class begins.

• They get to know their students even before class begins.

Faculty can see photos of their students

Faculty & students can email each other

eCommunity: Technical Information

• eCommunity was built by CDWS:– The Instructional Design team designed the

functionality and purpose – The Advanced Systems team developed the

code. – The Digital Media team provided the graphics

and the look,

eCommunity: Technical Information

• eCommunity is built in JSP, using Java, servelets, HTML, and an Oracle database backend.

• The JSP is powered by Tomcat. • Development was done mostly with NetBeans (a

Java IDE) and Dreamweaver for the HTML.• eCommunity is running on a Sun Solaris machine

although because it's Java, it can run practically anywhere.

Expected Legal and Policy Issues

• Some students need their identity protected (i.e. witness protection, undercover police, etc…).

• Some students have been or are afraid of being stalked by other students.

• Some students just don’t want others to know information about them.

How eCommunity Protects Students’ Privacy Rights

• Student photos are not released to other students until they give permission.

• Student biographical information is initially blank.

• Student emails are visible only to students in their classes

FERPA Information as well as online training documents for faculty

How eCommunity Protects Students’ Privacy Rights

• Students who complete the FERPA privacy form in the Registrar’s Office have their name, email, and all other information removed from the view of all other students at the university.

Unexpected Legal and Policy Issues

• Some faculty fear their intellectual property will be abused.

• Some faculty fear students will become empowered to organize against them.

• Both faculty and students fear eCommunity could be used to enable spamming within the university.

Planned Improvements for eCommunity 2.0

• Faculty Communities - A faculty member will be able to browse any department and add other faculty to their communities.

• Better support for larger classes/groups • Better internal email support - The internal email

composer will be able to handle attachments, allow saving of draft messages, and allow very large numbers of email recipients.

Planned Improvements for eCommunity 2.0

• Improved profile management of various roles.

• Integration with other systems - WebCT, Directory Service, ePortfolio system, and the UCF Portal.

• Student created groups - students will be given the ability to create their own communities.

What We Have Learned

• It is critical to protect the privacy of students.• Faculty and students appreciate community

building tools, if they are useful to them.• Faculty and students fear that abuse of

eCommunity could lead to curtailment or abolishment of the tool altogether.

• Clear statements of what uses are allowed and not-allowed must be clearly communicated to all users.

Dale Voorhees

University of Central Florida

dvoorhee@mail.ucf.edu

(407) 823-0464