Everyone who uses student information has a responsibility to maintain students' privacy and the security of their data. Ensuring student data privacy is about so much more than complying with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). While privacy must be top of mind when thinking about collecting and using personally identifiable…

This report focuses on data governance at post-secondary institutions and related organizations. Data governance is defined as the formal execution and enforcement of authority over the management of data and data-related assets (Seiner, 2014). An overview of data governance at higher education institutions provides detail on elements of data…

Our current federal postsecondary data system is incomplete and fails to provide today's students with the accurate, timely information that they need to inform their college choices and promote their success. As policymakers consider proposals to improve this federal data system, it is critical that they work in tandem to protect students'…

Imagine a student using an intelligent tutoring system. A researcher records the correctness and time of each of your attempts at solving a math problem, nothing more. With no names, no birth dates, no connections to the school, you would think it impossible to track the answers back to the class. Yet, class sections have been identified with no…

This article reports on a study exploring student perspectives on the collection and use of student data for learning analytics. With data collected via a mixed methods approach from 2,051 students across six Australian universities, it provides critical insights from students as a key stakeholder group. Findings indicate that while students are…

In this first issue of "Research Library Issues" ("RLI") in 2019, the authors explore privacy from a legal, digital, and applied perspective, with a focus on the implications and opportunities for research libraries. The current privacy landscape highlights the need for a nuanced understanding of the complicated nature of…

There is demand among policy-makers for the use of state education longitudinal data systems, yet laws and policies regulating data disclosure limit access to such data, and security concerns and risks remain high. Well-developed synthetic datasets that statistically mimic the relations among the variables in the data from which they were derived,…

While the field of educational data mining (EDM) has generated many innovations for improving educational software and student learning, the mining of student data has recently come under a great deal of scrutiny. Many stakeholder groups, including public officials, media outlets, and parents, have voiced concern over the privacy of student data…

Introduction: The increased availability of mobile sensing technologies is creating a paradigm shift for health research by creating new opportunities for measuring and monitoring behavior. For example, researchers can now collect objective information about a participant's daily activity using wearable devices that have: 1- Global Positioning…

Issues of confidentiality in educational data collection and access are examined in this paper, with attention to the treatment of confidential data. Confidentiality problems faced by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) are discussed in relation to the 1988 Hawkins-Stafford amendments, which protect the privacy rights of…

Individual privacy, suggests a Swedish judge, must be protected by restricting the kinds of personal data collected and the uses to which it will be put, and by preventing erroneous information to be used. An issue is whether personal data in education files can be used in conjunction with data in other files. (Author/LBH)

These four papers were presented as background at a national symposium exploring the relationships among law, ethics, and technology as they relate to the individual's informational privacy. George B. Trubow's "The Development and Status of 'Informational Privacy' Law and Policy in the United States" discusses privacy as it relates to the…

Sophisticated computer technology now allows for increasingly adaptable privacy safeguards. Various protection mechanisms are described, including password technology and encryption techniques, and administrative guidelines are offered. (Editor/LBH)

This paper examines the effects of Privacy laws on the conduct of legitimate social research. The report focuses on national legislation dealing with individual privacy, in particular the Privacy Act of 1974, and considers several new statutes which concern the privacy of participants in research. A large portion of the paper discusses (1)…

Examples of current institutional policy and practice illustrate threats to individual rights to privacy. Problems relate to computerized records and communications technology, the accuracy of the records, and the usage of the information. (Editor/LBH)