This research brief is a contribution by the Youth and Media team at the Berkman Center to its Student Privacy Initiative, which seeks to explore the opportunities and challenges that may arise as educational institutions adopt cloud computing technologies. In order to understand the implications of cloud services for student privacy more holistically, it might be helpful to examine how technology that is already implemented in academic contexts is used by youth and to explore how students feel about current practices. Towards this goal and informed by our recent research, the brief aims to make visible the youth perspective regarding the use of digital technology in the academic context, with a focus on privacy-relevant youth practices, limitations on access to information, and youth’s relation to educators in a high-tech environment. The brief includes insights and quotes gathered through a series of in-person focus groups as well as data from a questionnaire administered to all focus group participants. In addition, it highlights in a few instances additional research and data.

The overarching study was conducted by the Youth and Media team between February and August 2013. The team conducted 30 focus group interviews with a total of 203 participants across the greater Boston area, Chicago, Greensboro (North Carolina), Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara. Each focus group lasted 90 minutes, including the 15-minute questionnaire, consisting of 20 multiple-choice questions and one open-ended response. Although the research sample was not designed to constitute representative cross-sections of particular populations, the sample includes participants from diverse ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds. Participants ranged in age from 11 to 19. The mean age of participants is 14.8 (SD = 1.96).

About Youth and Media

Led by Principal Investigator Urs Gasser and Youth and Media Director Sandra Cortesi, in cooperation with Berkman board member John Palfrey and colleagues, Youth and Media encompasses an array of research, advocacy, and development initiatives around youth and digital technology. By understanding young people‘s interactions with digital media such as the Internet, cell phones, and video games, this highly collaborative project aims to gain detailed insights into youth practices and digital fluencies, harness the associated opportunities, address challenges, and ultimately shape the evolving regulatory and educational framework in a way that advances the public interest.

About the Student Privacy Initiative

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society’s Student Privacy Initiative, led by Executive Director Urs Gasser, explores the opportunities and challenges that may arise as educational institutions consider adopting cloud computing technologies. In its work across three overlapping clusters – Privacy Expectations & Attitudes, School Practices & Policies, and Law & Policy – this initiative aims to engage diverse stakeholder groups from government, educational institutions, academia, and business, among others, to develop shared good practices that promote positive educational outcomes, harness technological and pedagogical innovations, and protect critical values.

To learn more about the project, please visit http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/studentprivacy.

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A wide range of cloud technologies are now available to K-12 educators, ranging from replacements for school- and district-maintained servers (infrastructure as a service, in which servers traditionally maintained by a school or district are “outsourced” to a cloud vendor), to a variety of software tools that users access from web browsers or mobile applications, which are in turn supported and powered by third-party companies. In such a crowded landscape, it can be challenging to understand the different kinds of available services.

This inventory aims to provide a more concrete survey of the kinds of cloud computing technologies adopted in the K-12 context. It groups services according to the rough functionality they afford, from those common to any organization (collaboration and identity management), through the administrative office (student information systems), to the classroom (learning management and classroom management), and outside it (parent-teacher communication). The examples provided are meant to illustrate the kinds of cloud technology being developed in each class and are not exhaustive. In addition, it is important to recognize that the growing ubiquity of Internet access generally and of mobile devices specifically among students, parents, and teachers makes it increasingly easy and desirable for cloud application developers to create services that transcend these boundaries. In each case, we document:

• The level of adoption: who can sign up for the service?
• The audience: who will be expected to use it?
• The pricing model: is there a fee associated with the service, and under what conditions?
• The extensibility: how, and under what circumstances, can this service be connected to or included in other services?
• Mobile integration: does the service require or suggest the use of a mobile app? is the service’s web interface designed for use with mobile browsers?

About the Student Privacy Initiative

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society’s Student Privacy Initiative, led by Executive Director Urs Gasser, explores the opportunities and challenges that may arise as educational institutions consider adopting cloud computing technologies. In its work across three overlapping clusters – Privacy Expectations & Attitudes, School Practices & Policies, and Law & Policy – this initiative aims to engage diverse stakeholder groups from government, educational institutions, academia, and business, among others, develop shared good practices that promote positive educational outcomes, harness technological and pedagogical innovations, and protect critical values.

To learn more about the project, please visit http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/studentprivacy.

Authored by Alicia Solow-Niederman, Leah Plunkett, Urs Gasser

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This report offers recommended next steps and prioritizes open issues in the K-12 educational technology (edtech) space, with a special emphasis on two topics: (1) law and policy and (2) norms, values, attitudes, and practices, as well as an overarching eye to opportunities for collaboration. It builds from and reflects upon a conversation co-organized by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society’s Student Privacy Initiative and the Consortium for School Networking. At this meeting, policymakers and educational technology thought leaders came together to emphasize the view “on the ground” as seen from the district level and to identify specific resources for potential inclusion in a toolkit for diverse stakeholders considering the adoption and impact of cloud technologies in K-12 educational contexts.

The results of this conversation, synthesized in the body of this report, reflect considerable consensus around the main areas in need of attention in the dynamic edtech landscape, as well as how best to approach such work. A number of organizations and educational entities are already independently developing content and adopting processes around cloud technology in K-12 contexts to both support learning innovations and protect student privacy. Likely next steps—via independent efforts and ongoing collaboration among interested stakeholders—center on education, communication, and the creation and dissemination of general guidance documents and other similar resources that could support the development of shared good practices. Empirical data, current school and district policies and practices, legal and policy considerations, and technological developments should inform many of these efforts, and some open issues may require additional research, regulation, and / or coordination across parties to resolve. One particularly central process question moving forward involves the best mode(s) of multi-stakeholder collaboration and communications.

About the Student Privacy Initiative

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society’s Student Privacy Initiative, led by Executive Director Urs Gasser, explores the opportunities and challenges that may arise as educational institutions consider adopting cloud computing technologies. In its work across three overlapping clusters – Privacy Expectations & Attitudes, School Practices & Policies, and Law & Policy – this initiative aims to engage diverse stakeholder groups from government, educational institutions, academia, and business, among others, develop shared good practices that promote positive educational outcomes, harness technological and pedagogical innovations, and protect critical values.

To learn more about the project, please visit http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/studentprivacy.

About the Student Privacy Initiative

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society’s Student Privacy Initiative, led by Executive Director Urs Gasser, explores the opportunities and challenges that may arise as educational institutions consider adopting cloud computing technologies. In its work across three overlapping clusters – Privacy Expectations & Attitudes, School Practices & Policies, and Law & Policy – this initiative aims to engage diverse stakeholder groups from government, educational institutions, academia, and business, among others, develop shared good practices that promote positive educational outcomes, harness technological and pedagogical innovations, and protect critical values.

To learn more about the project, please visit http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/studentprivacy.

“In April 2013, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society in collaboration with Microsoft convened an exploratory workshop on “Student Privacy in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem,” which marked the launch of a broader research initiative on this topic. The Berkman student privacy project seeks to surface, identify, and evaluate central privacy issues and opportunities that may emerge when educational institutions consider moving to “the cloud” (To learn more about this initiative, please visit the Student Privacy Initiative page.). “The cloud” refers to computer-related services and software provided over the Internet and other networks…”

The original article can be found here.