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Take care when using non-UW apps for teaching and research

Tuesday, October 20, 2009


A faculty member in the School of Music wanted her students to use a popular social-networking Web site to post videos of student performances. The resulting video streams, she hoped, would enhance student learning.

In evaluating the Web service she planned to use, she noticed that its Terms of Service agreement gave the provider the right to use the posted material indefinitely. This troubled the faculty member, because some students do not want their identities made public and others might want to sell their performance video in the future.

Faculty who want to use non-UW-Madison computer applications need to consider issues like these. Use of such applications is permitted, but it is important to follow the campus's published usage guidelines to help safeguard faculty, the University, its students, and the public.

"Many faculty members are looking for third-party applications to fill their specific teaching needs," says Timmo Dugdale, who provides consulting help for instructors in DoIT's Academic Technology group. "Applications or services that are not offered by the campus, such as collaborative tools and blogs, are being used by faculty who need to look off-campus for solutions. That's OK, but there are questions that need to be asked, and faculty should be comfortable with the answers."

Guidelines for instructors and researchers

Faculty should know that non-UW-Madison applications and services they might adopt for teaching or research might not meet campus rules for privacy, intellectual property, security, and records retention. They should:

  • Understand the risks to themselves and their students of agreeing to a non-UW provider's terms of service, which is a legal contract. Those without the authority to enter into such a contract could become personally responsible for meeting the terms of service and for any problems that may arise.
  • Ensure that student privacy and identity are protected. Restrict access to sensitive data, comply with applicable laws, safeguard data, and take other necessary measures. Says Dugdale: "Students using Blogger, for example, might divulge their or others' personal information if the site owner has not imposed access controls. To solve this problem, faculty could advise their students to use pseudonyms when they create their accounts."
  • Let students know if non-UW-Madison applications and services will be used in a class at the beginning of the semester.
  • Comply with regulations and campus policies regarding the retention of, access to, and support and recovery of records.
  • Safeguard intellectual property rights and understand who owns content and what can be done with it. Students should be informed about this, also.

In addition, researchers should verify and understand their grant's requirements for handling data, which could include storage on local computers.

The guidelines for instructors are spelled out at Application guidelines for instructors Guidelines for researchers are at Application guidelines for researchers.

Faculty and researchers who have questions about using non-UW applications - especially terms of service and possible risks of use - should contact UW's Office of Administrative Legal Services at 263-7400, DoIT Academic Technology at 262-5667 or academictech@doit.wisc.edu, or their college/departmental support staff.