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New Report from the Student Privacy Initiative: A Snapshot of K-12 Cloud-Based Ed Tech & Student Privacy in Early 2014

New Report from the Student Privacy Initiative: A Snapshot of K-12 Cloud-Based Ed Tech & Student Privacy in Early 2014

As part of its ongoing Student Privacy Initiative, led by Executive Director Urs Gasser, the Berkman Center is excited to offer a new publication, Framing the Law & Policy Picture: A Snapshot of K-12 Cloud-Based Ed Tech & Student Privacy in Early 2014. This analysis, intended to guide policy and decision-makers at the school district, local, state, and federal government levels, first captures the current state of play and then puts forward pragmatic recommendations that aim to protect student privacy while harnessing the generative potential of cloud-based ed tech.

You may also be interested in our previously published reports and guides, including a synthesis of prioritized open issues and recommended next steps in the K-12 ed tech space, Student Privacy & Cloud Computing at the District Level: Next Steps and Key Issues; a survey of the kinds of cloud computing technologies (categorized by the affordances each offers) that may be adopted in K-12 educational contexts, K-12 Edtech Cloud Service Inventory, and a research brief that presents empirical data on student privacy attitudes drawn from a series of nationwide focus groups, Youth Perspectives on Tech in Schools: From Mobile Devices to Restrictions and Monitoring.

The Student Privacy Initiative team looks forward to continuing to develop additional materials in the months to come, with an eye not only to conducting legal analysis and producing practical resources on existing laws, policies, and practices, but also to considering privacy and ed tech opportunities and challenges that may lie ahead and creating shared good practices that both bolster privacy and preserve space for innovation as the educational sector continues to evolve.

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.Please visit http://cyber.harvard.edu/research/studentprivacy for more information about the project.

About the Berkman Center for Internet & Society

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, the Center is home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates working on projects that span the broad range of intersections between cyberspace, technology, and society.

More information can be found at http://cyber.harvard.edu.

Contact

Please contact Student Privacy Initiative Team Member Paulina Haduong at phaduong@cyber.harvard.edu with questions or media inquiries.

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Student Privacy Initiative

The Student Privacy Initiative-- part of the Center's growing suite of Privacy Initiatives-- aims to surface, identify, and evaluate central privacy issues and opportunities that…


Publications 01

Publication
Jun 2, 2014

Framing the Law & Policy Picture: A Snapshot of K-12 Cloud-Based Ed Tech & Student Privacy in Early 2014

This paper provides a snapshot of key aspects of a diverse—and heated—law, policy, and implementation debate that is taking place in the rapidly evolving cloud-based ed tech…