{"id":450,"date":"2019-08-13T13:16:21","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T13:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/?p=450"},"modified":"2019-08-13T13:16:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T13:16:21","slug":"ethics-and-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/uncategorized\/ethics-and-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics and Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"

We probably all know, to some degree or another, that our data is constantly being harvested by tech companies. Those companies track us across the web, and monetize the information they have on our browsing habits, selling our data to advertisers and other corporate interests. Some of this data is information we quasi-choose to give away (by having a facebook account<\/a>, perhaps, or wearing a fitbit) but much is extracted from us without our knowledge. (Did you know that facebook can track you across the web even if you don\u2019t have a facebook account, for example?<\/a>) A particularly good example of data extraction \u2013 courtesy of hypervisible<\/a>, our pedagogy expert at the Bright Institute last week \u2013 is that license plate readers are constantly recording where you\u2019re driving<\/a>. No one \u201cconsents\u201d to have their license plates read just by driving down a public road. But our data is gathered regardless.<\/p>\n

Similarly, huge amounts of data are extracted from our students as they go through their daily lives on our campuses. Last week, hypervisible<\/a> asked us to consider all the data that a student might give away or have extracted from them on an average day on campus. Christian Crouch, Tamika Nunley, and myself drew this comic strip showing just some of the ways that happens.<\/p>\n

\"Data<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As educators, we don\u2019t have control over all the data students give away or have extracted. But there are places we can make a definite intervention.<\/p>\n

First \u2013 most of us use a learning management system (LMS) like Blackboard, Canvas, or Google Classroom. These systems require students to log in to use them, which means their individual choices can be tracked \u2013 whether they download readings and assignments; how long they spend on a particular page; what their grades are; whether they were in class, and more. Students might write their papers within an LMS system (by using and connecting Google docs, for example), but all LMS systems can read the metadata on a document for how long a student spent actively working on the assignment. Some LMSs require students to submit papers through TurnItIn or Grammerly. All of this information is being monetized in some way or another. TurnItIn, for example, takes ownership of the intellectual property rights rooted in all papers fed through its system. Canvas is working to \u201cpredict\u201d what a student\u2019s grade will be in a class before they\u2019ve so much as shown up<\/a>, all based on their behaviors and grades in other classes. (This is sold as retention data, but it\u2019s not hard to see the sinister underside to predicting a student\u2019s grade before they\u2019ve walked into our classroom.)<\/p>\n

So what can we do to limit our students\u2019 unwitting data exposure?<\/p>\n

First, we can put a tech ethics statement in our syllabi. Here\u2019s the statement I drafted last week:<\/p>\n

Whenever we\u2019re online, or logged into a learning management system like Moodle or Classroom, our digital identity is being tracked. We will therefore spend time learning how to make informed choices about our use of technology. I will also ensure that there are analog options for you throughout this course, so that you can minimize the extent to which your digital data is mined.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first part of this statement requires me to help my students understand the stakes related to data collection and mining. Happily, many wise and smart people have made this a pretty easy thing to do. The University of Mary Washington has made a series of course modules<\/a> on digital knowledge and skills available through its Domain of One\u2019s Own program. There\u2019s also a short, multi-part documentary series<\/a> called Do Not Track which is easy to assign as homework (in pieces, or all at once). These provide excellent starting points for conversation with our students about what\u2019s at stake when they log in or go online.<\/p>\n

The second part asks me to make some alterations to the way I provide course information. I\u2019m not going to stop using Google Classroom altogether, but I am going to offer alternate ways for students to get hold of class material if they want to limit data collection. My syllabus is usually written and hosted in Google Docs, for example, so I\u2019ll simply make it possible for anyone with the link to the doc to find it without logging into the system. I\u2019m going to print hard copies of the syllabus, also, and hard copies of all the assignments. I\u2019m going to put an old-fashioned set of photocopied articles on reserve at the library in addition to linking to stable URLs of each article. I\u2019ll accept paper copies of assignments instead of insisting they be turned in through Classroom, and I\u2019ll store grades in a spreadsheet I create instead of using Classroom\u2019s gradebook. These are pretty simple steps I can take to allow students to take my class \u201cuntracked.\u201d I\u2019m sure there are more steps I\u2019m not thinking of right now, too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy for some of us to throw up our hands and say \u201cprivacy is doomed, why bother?\u201d But not all of us equally bear the weight of losing our digital privacy. Surveillance has a long and inglorious history in the United States, stretching back to first contact, where communities of color are more likely to be surveilled, with terrible consequences, than people who are white. The same is true for our digital lives. While it may be easy for some of us to hand wave privacy concerns, that is not a choice we should make on behalf of our students, especially our students of color, first-gen, and low-income students. Our students deserve information, guidance, and choices. I\u2019m unendingly grateful to hypervisible<\/a> for facilitating conversations in which this became so clear.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

P.S. Think about changing your default search engine to Duck Duck Go<\/a>, which doesn’t track you across the web.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We probably all know, to some degree or another, that our data is constantly being harvested by tech companies. Those companies track us across the web, and monetize the information they have on our browsing habits, selling our data to advertisers and other corporate interests. Some of this data is information we quasi-choose to give away (by having a facebook account, perhaps, or wearing a fitbit) but much is extracted from us without our knowledge. (Did you know that facebook…<\/p>\n

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