Re: Risks of using "free" public blogs and/or wikis for class activities

[Cal Frye <cjf () CALFRYE COM>]

Clifford Collins wrote:
> A faculty member on our campus recently approached our IT group to have
> a blog and/or wiki set up to support her classes next month. This
> request was out of the blue and didn't go through normal channels
> (department head, planning committees, etc).
>
> IT's response was that some thought, planning and a server were
> necessary to do it right and therefore more time would be needed to
> provide a supportable solution. Now the faculty member is saying she
> will just use one of the many "free" ones on the Internet.
>
> I'm interested in people's view of any risks or other down-sides to such
> an approach. Pointers to papers, analysis and whatnot would be
> appreciated as well. Your thoughts?
I'm kind of on her side. We're a college, after all, not a computer
shop. ;-)

Here, I would recommend the course tools available in our Blackboard
service.

Not that Blackboard is exactly what she wants, but it may serve well
enough to avoid going outside. My concerns would be in the exposure of
student user comments or online identities to others outside the class,
whether by Google or some other archival means. She should apprise her
students that their comments made on the blog are not private to the
course and could be taken out of context.

I might suggest she assign aliases for the students to use on an
external blog or wiki, and for her to strongly counsel them to create
fresh passwords for this purpose, too.

I hope the question of grades, SSNs, and other private data doesn't need
to be discussed....

--
Regards,
-- Cal Frye, Network Administrator, Oberlin College

   www.calfrye.com,  www.pitalabs.com

"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a
book!" --Henry David Thoreau (1817-62)