There are plenty of good reasons why students should publicly participate online. Although I strongly recommend public participation for reasons described by outstanding University of Oregon graduate Staci Stringer and University of Georgia professor Karen Russell, students should not be required to participate by their teachers, at least not in an identifiable way (see the bottom of this blog post for a discussion about alternatives). The following arguments apply to requirements to share one’s writing or identity online in an identifiable way.
1. Giving students control over their privacy and self-presentation is the right thing to do.
Students’ grades should not suffer from their preferences to avoid sharing their writing or identities online. We should not impose our ideas on others about what constitutes safe and comfortable participation online nor should we require others to follow our beliefs about where to draw the line on privacy. We can, however, share ideas about these topics as part of a conversation. Will students who want to be public relations practitioners be disadvantaged by not publicly participating in social media? Yes, as Staci and Karen have explained in detail. I suggest, however, that we present the arguments and let students make the decision for themselves for the reasons expressed in this blog post.
2. When students believe we are asking them to do something that violates their privacy, the relationship suffers.
Strong relationships are built on mutual understanding and respect. When students believe we are asking them to do something that violates their privacy, control mutuality (satisfaction with the amount of influence one has in the relationship) suffers. With required courses, students are coerced into publicly identifying themselves online or having their grades suffer. We do not know students’ histories and reasons for wanting to have a private identity. Simply wanting privacy is enough. In terms of the relationship argument, there would likely be more leeway in an elective course titled “Establishing Your Digital Footprint” that presented expectations on the syllabus because students have chosen to take the elective and there are alternatives they could take while still pursuing their intended majors.
3. Requiring identifiable public participation online is legally questionable.
I am basing this third argument on my untrained review of the law, Web site documents I’ve found by other universities, and two blog posts by a credible source (including mixed comments by her readers). With the qualification that I could be wrong, for now, it looks like requiring identifiable public participation online could be prohibited by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Exhibit A: Joann Golis wrote a blog post and a follow-up post about this topic. I find her to be a credible source because she wrote these blog posts in preparation for a workshop she was giving at Educause Learning Initiative’s annual meeting. In addition, she works for the Instructional Design and Development Department at DePaul University. I am reliant on speaker credibility because I am not an expert in this area.
In response to a blogging requirement scenario, Golis wrote
“Another land mine in this scenario is the fact that the blogs were not necessarily made private, so anyone could view them and associate the student’s name with the course they are taking and reveal that they are students in a particular course, term, and institution. Requiring the student’s name to appear on the front page is also a red flag.”
It should be acknowledged, however, that some comments to her first blog post indicate an opinion that identifiable blog posts are fine as long as an instructor does not comment on them. Even with these responses by other credible sources though, I return to the excerpt by Golis quoted above.
Exhibit B: A guide to FERPA by Auburn University suggests that requiring identifiable participation online could violate FERPA.
Scenario: “I want my students to create an account at a wiki/blog/similar webpage where they will complete tasks required for class.”
Auburn University response: “FERPA may be violated unless students are provided with anonymous computer aliases and only faculty has the key to identify students by their aliases.”
Exhibit C: A student disclosure form from North Carolina State University suggests that requiring students to have public blogs is a violation of FERPA.
“Under the Federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) and NC State’s FERPA regulation, a student’s education records are protected from disclosure to third parties. Because of the public nature of weblogs (blogs), students must provide written consent for blog participation in a course setting.”
Concluding Thoughts About the Legal Argument
Despite the legal questions, social media assignments should not end. There are alternatives we can share with students. As Michael Staton wrote:
“FERPA is in place to make sure that institutions are careful with and respectful of a student’s right to privacy, but it was not intended to hold back education in the 1990s before there were things like APIs and the social Web. No school has ever lost federal funds because of FERPA, which is the only punishment that can occur for being in violation (besides being tied up in a lawsuit). Privacy, security, and personal control over information is more than a valid concern, but let’s not let it be a brick wall of anxiety in the face of the march towards user-friendly, interoperable, and multitudinous educational solutions!”
I agree with this statement while insisting that we provide alternatives for students who choose privacy.
Alternatives
I am establishing the following alternatives to my assignments.
Blog: Give students the option of establishing a blog that is only visible to themselves. For the commenting requirement, provide the option of turning in the other person’s blog post with the comment they would write.
Electronic portfolio: Give students the option of hosting the electronic portfolio on a blog that is only visible to themselves. Students can use Google docs to host their work and only provide access to me.
Twitter: Give students the option of signing in and tweeting from a generic class account.
LinkedIn: Give students the option of submitting their resumes.
delicious: Let students complete a tagging assignment from a generic class account if they do not want to set up their own accounts.
PR Open Mic: Present a recent discussion forum topic or blog post topic from PR Open Mic and require students to write a response to it in Word (like a traditional assignment) if they do not want to set up a PR Open Mic profile and submit the response to the online discussion.
I will no longer require students to set up a Google Alert. Although it is not publicly identifiable, I don’t see that the requirement is justified. Students can learn enough for classroom requirements by watching my demonstration. They can sign up for their own account within minutes if they wish.
Wow, great post, Tiffany! I should’ve said in my post that students are allowed to use pseudonyms, tweet for an organization rather than themselves, etc. — in other words, there is some flexibility in the “public” part of public participation.
However, I have required them to post to my class book review blog and never even thought to ask them if they wanted their identity disguised… now considering deleting the blog! Thanks for adding some important thoughts to the conversation.
This was an excellent blog post. I never thought about how these social media tools may be a violation of FERPA. This has changed how I am structuring my summer class. Thanks!
Tiffany, this is a great post. I, too, have struggled with the issues of privacy and identification in putting together my online assignments. I think this is an area that needs to be very carefully explored, so thanks for writing about it.
In my most recent assignment, students in two (different) classes were required to participate on Twitter and FourSquare for just under two weeks. I did require the Twitter account to be public, and also that students include a professional bio note and image (although I stressed that the image did NOT have to be a photo of themselves). Their account name also did not have to be their own name, as long as I was informed of the pseudonym for grading purposes.
Since this particular assignment involved sharing PR-related content and gaining familiarity, and I told them they might consider keeping a second account (locked or under another name) for personal use, I thought it was appropriate to make these requirements. I confess it hadn’t occurred to me that disclosing students’ affiliation with the university or enrollment in a particular class might violate their privacy; this is something I’m going to have to think long and hard about in the future, both in my PR classes and in the social media course I’m teaching in the fall. These are complicated waters to navigate when you are teaching material that requires students to gain hands-on experience with tools that involve public interaction.
For FourSquare, I was extremely mindful of the potential privacy risks, and strongly cautioned students to disengage the application from Twitter and Facebook, as well as to accept as friends only those people they already knew and trusted. Some disregarded my warnings, which makes me nervous. I’ll have to think about how I structure such assignments in the future–also in view of the legal ramifications you’ve raised. Thanks again for starting an important discussion.
Great Post Tiffany!
I think it is very important though to have a class discussion on transparency if students do end up using a pseudonym. In the future and they could find themselves in a sticky situation. I’ve recently been consulting with a company who had this issue and it was extremely challenging for them to wrap their heads around it.
There is a great group of students coming out of UO and thanks to you and Kelli! Continue to keep em’ on their toes!
Tiffany, This is a great post! I agree with your concerns about requiring students to participate in social media platforms, and I have tried to assuage my concerns by permitting students to keep their Twitter accounts private and by hosting their blog assignments on our course Blackboard site, which is not publicly available.
Your article offers more great suggestions for ways in which professors can protect the privacy of our students, while still engaging in pedagogy that is critical to the development of skills they will need in their future public relations careers.
And that is my final point: those future public relations careers. No professor wants to jeopardize the professional futures of her students. And as much as we tell students to be careful what they post online, they will make mistakes. The benefit of making mistakes (like posting stupid things to Twitter) as a student is that one has the chance to recover from them and learn from them. Requiring public, online participation for students robs them of not only their privacy, but also possibly their futures.
Marvelous post, Tiffany. I agree that students — or anyone — should not be required to share personal information on such a public platform, especially when online identity theft is such a common occurrence.
I also like your alternatives students can opt into when completing assignments. Granted they’re not publishing material publicly (or at least not with their name attached to it), it sheds light on the same processes social media practitioners go through on a daily basis (i.e. commenting on blogs, linking websites* and simply getting familiarized with multiple social networks).
Very interesting post, Tiffany! It appears that this is a hot topic in the PR classroom, right now.
I think you bring up some very good points as to why social media involvement should not be required. And, as you pointed out, there are ways to get around some of these issues.
As a young person going out into the world of PR, I recognize the importance of learning the RIGHT way to use social media. Sometimes, it takes a classroom environment to learn that.
At the same time, I also recognize the importance of privacy and maintaining personal boundaries. So yes, it is a sticky subject.
I think that your recommended alternatives to required social media involvement are so on the mark! Classroom accounts are great ways to protect one’s privacy. Still, I love that our class (J452) gave us the option to set up our own PERSONAL blogs and social media accounts. I think that they will be beneficial to all of us, should we continue using them.
-Sarah
I appreciate this conversation about social media involvement in the classroom, Tiffany. As a student, it is nice to know that our teachers have our opinions in mind when crafting their curriculums. These alternatives are a great option for students who may not be completely comfortable with social media. An important aspect of them is that students get to choose, which makes us feel that we are more in control of our education and can apply it to our futures in the most useful way. This way, social media, or a lack thereof, doesn’t take away from anyone’s classroom experience.
I find all of the discussion on this topic really interesting, and like to hear what other students, teachers and professionals have to say. Your post has appealed to people from all over the spectrum who have differing opinions, which goes to show the strength of your alternatives.
- Lisa
I read your comments with great interest. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and reflections with me.
Karen, it’s great to hear that you have been giving students options. The book review blog issue is a tough call. I hope that students would take the initiative to contact you if they felt uncomfortable. Also, thank you so much for linking to my post at the end of your discussion about social media participation requirements.
Natalie, my blog post is changing how I teach my class too. As we continue to venture into teaching social media, we are learning as we go. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Dawn, it sounds like you are on safe ground with your Twitter assignment because you allow students to use pseudonyms. Also, I think it’s exciting that you’re teaching your students FourSquare. Your warnings about the risks are a good idea, especially because FourSquare is location-oriented. Using a legal waiver (perhaps adapting one of the examples I linked to) and designing an alternative assignment are possibilities to consider. One idea for an alternative assignment could be to shadow someone in the class who is using FourSquare and write a reflection paper about what was learned. It’s not the same experience, but we can expect that this person can at least get an elementary understanding of the tool to satisfy basic requirements for class.
[By the way, for any of my recent students reading this, we have Professor Dawn Gilpin to thank for learning how to change the dull default colors on Tweetdeck. I have been teaching this since she showed me how to do it at the Edelman Academic Summit last spring!]
Staci, you make an excellent point about having a conversation about using pseudonyms. My alternative assignments avoid using fake names and instead involve having me set up a delicious and Twitter account under a name such as “J452 UO students.” Students would need to print their homework and highlight their contributions to the generic class account. This wouldn’t be something that a person would include in his or her portfolio. As long as we are on the topic of pseudonyms though, I would hope that someone would not make up a fake name and would instead opt for something generically accurate, such as “Non-Profit PR Student.”
Bey-Ling, thank you for making such a compelling argument for protecting students’ privacy. You have advanced the conversation. Thank you so much for contributing to this discussion. I found your last two sentences to be especially powerful:
“The benefit of making mistakes (like posting stupid things to Twitter) as a student is that one has the chance to recover from them and learn from them. Requiring public, online participation for students robs them of not only their privacy, but also possibly their futures.”
Scott, you make a great point about identity theft, and I’m thrilled to hear that you like the alternative assignments. I would have liked to have thought of them earlier. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Sarah, I’m so glad to learn that you like the alternative assignments. I plan to always make the public option available as well for any student like yourself who wants to develop his or her digital footprint. You are already blazing the way with your twitter account and two blogs!
Lisa, thank you so much for your reflections on my blog post. It is meaningful to see this conversation unfold as people from various locations (educator, student, professional) share their perspectives. I appreciate your point about the importance of letting students choose and be in control of their education. I completely agree.
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