Librarians Protest Surveillance Bills, Online Legal Education, K-12 Online Learning Stats and Quality Standards, FERPA

Librarians Say Surveillance Bills Lack Adequate Oversight
by Ellen Nakashima
Nov. 2, 2007, The Washington Post

“A little-remarked feature of pending legislation on domestic surveillance has provoked alarm among university and public librarians who say it could allow federal intelligence-gathering on library patrons without sufficient court oversight.”

“Draft House and Senate bills would allow the government to compel any “communications service provider” to provide access to e-mails and other electronic information within the United States as part of federal surveillance of non-U.S. citizens outside the country.”

“The Justice Department has previously said that “providers” may include libraries, causing three major university and library groups to worry that the government’s ability to monitor people targeted for surveillance without a warrant would chill students’ and faculty members’ online research activities.” . . .

Legal Education at a Distance
by Scott Jaschik
Oct. 31, 2007, Inside Higher Ed

“As online education has become more and more popular, law schools have largely been on the sidelines. The American Bar Association will not accredit distance programs, and has strict limits on the use of distance education in traditional programs.”

“On Tuesday, however, the online only Concord School of Law – which has managed to grow without ABA recognition – announced a merger with Kaplan University. In terms of corporate ownership, this isn’t much of a change – both Concord and Kaplan are divisions of Kaplan Inc., a major player in for-profit higher education. But because Kaplan University is regionally accredited (which Concord is not), the merger will make Concord students eligible for federal student loans and to defer repaying their past student loans when enrolled. These are seen as advances for Concord – whose officials say that they believe law school’s efforts will eventually change attitudes about distance legal education.”

“While the ABA has not changed its rules, it has quietly approved an unusual variance from its procedures to allow the Penn State Dickinson School of Law to offer many more courses at a distance than ABA rules permit. While the effort relates in part to particular characteristics of the Penn State program (which makes use of two physical campuses), the ABA waiver represents the broadest experiment to date in the association giving its blessing to the extensive use of distance education.” . . .

Online Learning Grows More Popular: Improved Technology Has Made Online Classes More Attractive to More and More Students
by Tom Regan
Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 31, 2007

“With the spread of broadband technology and improved online teaching tools, students and teachers are finding online classes to be a more fluid and rewarding experience.”

“The use of Skype, an Internet-based phone service, for example has enhanced the teaching of foreign languages online. Yu-Hsiu Lee, a doctoral student in the Language Education Department of Indiana University, Bloomington, praised Skype for allowing anyone who wants to learn Chinese to have one-on-one instruction with a native speaker. Skype allows students to both see and hear the instructor on their computer screens, he wrote last week in the Skype Journal, a blog devoted to the evolution of Internet phone service. Unlike using a CD to learn a language, he says, Skype allows students to get instant feedback and to ask instructors specific questions.”

When Wikipedia Is the Assignment
by Andy Guess
Oct. 29, 2007, Inside Higher Ed

“Wikipedia: time-saver for students, bane of professors everywhere. Or is it?”

. . . “At a morning session featuring a professor and a specialist in learning technology from the University of Washington at Bothell, presenters showed how Wikipedia – often viewed warily by educators who worry that students too readily accept unverifiable information they find online – can be marshaled as a central component of a course’s syllabus rather than viewed as a resource to be banned or reluctantly tolerated.”

“That’s what Martha Groom, a professor at the university’s Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program, tried to do for the first time last fall by requiring term papers to be submitted to the popular, user-edited online encyclopedia. The project comes at a time when instructors and administrators continue to debate the boundaries of certain technologies within the classroom and how to adapt to students’ existing online habits.” . . .

Learning in the 21st Century: A National Report of Online Learning
by Karen Greenwood Henke for Project Tomorrow and Blackboard
Oct. 18, 2007

“This report explores student, teacher, and parent attitudes toward online learning based on surveys completed by 232,781 K-12 students, 21,272 teachers, and 15,316 parents as part of Speak Up, a national research project facilitated by Project Tomorrow, as well as interviews with administrators and teachers in six school districts using a range of different online learning models. This report focuses on the use of online learning for sixth through twelfth grade students and for teacher professional development.”

• Online learning is becoming widespread in U.S. education. One in five students in grades 6-12 have taken an online or distance learning course at school or on their own, and 1 in 3 students selected online classes as a component of their ideal school.

• While 47% of students in grades 9-12 pursue online learning to secure courses not offered at school and 43% to work at their own pace, extra help was the top reason for 6-8th grade students (42%), teachers (57%) and parents (58%). Both parents and teachers also value online courses as a way for students with an extended absence to make up their work.

• More teachers (46%) have taken an online course than students, however only 3% have ever taught an online class. On a weekly basis, 17% of teachers use online tools for professional development and 12% seek advice or counseling outside of the school community.

• Seventy-seven percent of teachers believe that technology makes a difference in learning and 28% would like to see online courses offered as an alternative in their district. Only 3% of Speak Up teachers report they have taught an online class, however 24% are interested in teaching one.

• Compared to 18% of teachers, 30% of 6-8 grade students, 39% of 9-12 grade students, and 42% of parents believe that online classes are a good investment to improve student achievement. More parents selected online classes than laptops and white boards (the top choice for many students and teachers). Interviews suggest that parents value their own online access to the curriculum and the ability to track their child’s progress.

NACOL National Standards of Quality for Online Courses

“On September 12, 2007, the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) endorsed the National Standards of Quality for Online Courses.” . . .

“NACOL conducted a comprehensive review of course standards available. Based on this review, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) Standards for Quality Online Courses, used by the 16 states in the southern United States is adopted as the source for the NACOL National Standards for Quality for Online Courses. NACOL added a standard to include 21st Century Skills.”

The express purpose of the organization [North American Council for Online Learning] is to facilitate collaboration, advocacy, and research to enhance quality K-12 online learning.

Balancing Student Privacy and School Safety: A Guide to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act for Colleges and Universities
October 2007, Department of Education

U.S. Secretary of Education Spellings has announced the availability of new brochures that provide guidance on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to enable institutions to better balance students’ privacy rights with safety concerns. Three brochures — for K-12, postsecondary and parents are available.

2007 Campus Computing Survey – Executive Summary

The 2007 Campus Computing Survey
IT Security and Crisis Management
Pose Continuing Challenges

IT security and crisis management present continuing challenges for college and university officials according to new data from 2007 Campus Computing Survey. The survey data reveal solid improvements in some areas but continuing problems in others. For example, just three-fifths (59.1 percent) of the institutions participating in the 2007 survey report a strategic plan for IT disaster recovery, up slightly from 2006 (55.7 percent) and reflecting only modest gains from 2004 (55.5 percent) or even 2002 (53.0 percent).

The good news is that the percentage of campuses reporting hacks or attacks on campus networks continues to decline, down to 45.6 percent in 2007 from 51.1 percent in 2005. Similarly, fewer campuses report major problems with computer viruses (14.8 percent, compared to 35.4 percent in 2005) and spyware (15.9 percent, compared to 40.8 percent in two years ago). But the incidents of stolen computers with sensitive data increased slightly from 2006 to 2007 (17.1 percent in 2007, compared to 13.5 percent in 2006 and 15.3 percent in 2005). And although the numbers are generally low (under 15 percent), more campuses report student security incidents linked to social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace (13.2 percent in 2007 vs. 9.8 percent in 2006) and institutional data security due to data loss on a server not under the control of central IT services (14.6 percent this past year, compared to 11.3 percent in 2006). A new item on the 2007 survey reveals that 6.5 percent of institutions experienced an IT security incident this past year due to an intentional employee transgression.

Additionally, in the wake of the tragic events at Virginia Tech in spring 2007, many campuses are moving quickly to expand and enhance IT and communication services and resources as part of a broader IT and campus crisis management plan. As of fall 2007, more than two-fifths (44.0 percent) of institutions report a strategic plan for emergency communication or notification services. Yet for most institutions, the key elements of the emergency communication/notification plan appear based to be existing IT resources such as email (66.4 percent), campus web sites or portals (62.6 percent), and campus phone services (44.6 percent). Although there are some variations by sector, comparatively few institutions have emergency communication plans that incorporate notification to off-campus phones (18.0 percent) or cell phones (22.1 percent).

“The 2007 survey data confirm the continuing security and crisis management challenges confronting campus IT officials across all sectors of higher education,” says Kenneth C. Green, founding director of The Campus Computing Project and a visiting scholar at the Center for Education Studies at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA. “Two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and six years after the 9-11 attacks, it its still surprising that so many colleges and universities – approximately 40 percent – have yet to complete or update their IT disaster plans. Additionally, and not surprisingly, recent events at Virginia Tech, Delaware State, and other institutions have created new expectations, or in some cases new mandates, regarding emergency notification services that will now need to be incorporated into these campus plans and procedures.”

Although IT security issues pose continuing challenges for campus IT officials, the proportion of CIOs who identify IT security as the “single most important IT issue affecting my institution over the next two-three years” declined slightly in 2007 to 25.5 percent, down from 30 percent in both 2005 and 2006. Ranked second in 2007 is “upgrading/replacing administrative IT/campus ERP systems” (13.0 percent), followed closely by “hiring/retaining qualified IT staff” (12.3 percent). The ERP upgrade/replacement issue moves from third in the 2004-2006 surveys to second in 2007, replacing “the instructional integration of information technology.” The new concern about hiring suggests the growing competition for qualified IT talent in the campus and corporate sectors.

Wireless campus networks now reach two-thirds (60.1 percent) of college classrooms, compared to half (51.2 percent) in 2006 and just a third (31.1 percent) in 2004, according to the 2007 survey data. Additionally, more than three-fourths (76.7 percent) of the campuses participating in the annual survey have a strategic plan for deploying wireless as of fall 2007, up from 68.8 percent in and 55.3 percent in 2004. By sector, the proportion classrooms with wireless access ranges from over two- fifths (44.4 percent) in community colleges (up from 26.8 percent in 2005) to more than two-thirds (69.8 percent) in private research universities (up from 52.8 percent in 2005 and 47.4 percent in 2004).

“Wireless can be a wonderful resource for everyone on campus,” says Green. “It fosters access, mobility, and collaborative work among students and faculty.” But he also notes there is continuing evidence of backlash against wireless from some faculty who would prefer that students not hide behind their computer screens during class. Additionally, Green comments that the arrival of the Apple iPhone and other Wi-Fi phones and PDA devices will present new challenges for campus IT officials and new demands for access to the campus network from students, faculty, administrators and staff who will come to campus with these devices: “To date campus IT officials have preferred not to deal with mobile phones and PDAs on campus networks. That will have to change with the arrival of a new generation of network compatible phones and PDAs in the coming year. ”

The 2007 survey data point to little change in the orientation towards Open Source applications among senior campus technology officers first reported in 2004. Almost three-fifths (57.3 percent, compared to 51.9 percent in 2004) agree that “Open Source will play an increasingly important role in our campus IT strategy.” However, less than a third of the survey respondents (27.6 percent, compared to 28.9 percent in 2004) agree that Open Source “offers a viable alternative” for key campus administrative or ERP applications such as student information systems, campus finance systems, or personnel/human resource software.

Yet even with the continuing “affirmative ambivalence” about Open Source among many campus IT leaders, the 2007 survey data document key gains for Open Source applications, specifically Open Source Learning Management Systems (LMS). A growing number of colleges and universities have made an Open Source LMS their campus standard. The proportion of institutions that have established Sakai as the campus standard LMS remains steady at approximate 3 percent, while the proportion using Moodle as the campus standard LMS almost doubled between 2006 and 2007, rising from 4.2 to 7.8 percent over one year. Moodle is particularly popular among private four-year colleges: almost one-fifth (17.2 percent) of private four-year institutions have made Moodle the campus standard LMS, up from 10.2 percent in 2006.

“There is ample of evidence of growing interest in and the slow but rising deployment of Open Source applications,” says Green. “The recent gains for Moodle and Sakai are very interesting, suggesting that ten years after the deployment of the first commercial LMS applications, campus officials and faculty advisory committees are reviewing seriously the various LMS offerings from both commercial providers and the collaborative Open Source movement.”

The 2007 survey brings new data to the discussion of how campus officials are addressing the problem of peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading of music and movies on campus networks. As noted in past surveys, the vast majority of colleges and universities (82.9 percent) have campus policies to address inappropriate P2P downloading. The 2007 survey provides new information about the campus procedures that enforce these policies. More than two-thirds of institutions (70.5 percent) report that students can lose their campus network privileges for P2P violations, while almost half (45.9 percent) impose other kinds of sanctions for inappropriate P2P activity. Almost of a third (29.1 percent) of colleges and universities have installed some type technology product as part of campus efforts stem P2P piracy on campus networks, while 12.8 percent now have mandatory user education programs to inform students about copyright and P2P issues.

“The 2007 survey data confirm that colleges and universities are making significant efforts to address the problem of P2P piracy on campus networks,” says Green. “Unfortunately, some critics will point to the survey data to argue that campuses are not doing enough in this area. But the fact remains that colleges are universities are far more conscientious, indeed far more aggressive about addressing P2P piracy issues than are the consumer market broadband service providers such as AT&T, Comcast, Earthlink, and TimeWarner. Colleges and universities are engaged in user education and are imposing sanctions for P2P violations. Additionally, many institutions are spending significant sums to deploy software that providers claim will stem P2P downloading. Yet we know that the proposed P2P software solutions are far from perfect, as was acknowledged in recent congressional hearings.”

Begun in 1990, The Campus Computing Survey is the largest continuing study of computing and information technology in American higher education. The survey data are based on the responses provided by senior campus officials, typically the senior institutional technology officer (CIO/CTO, vice president for information technology, etc.). The 2007 survey report is based on data provided by campus officials representing 555 two- and four-year public and private colleges and universities across the United States. Survey respondents completed the online questionnaire during September and October, 2007.

Copies of the 2007 Campus Computing Report will be available for delivery beginning December 10, 2007 (price $37, plus $2.00 shipping/handling to US addresses) from Kenneth Green, c/o Campus Computing, PO Box 261242, Encino, CA 91426-1242. The report can also be ordered from The Campus Computing Web Site.