Choosing Learning Technologies: Student Privacy + FIPPA

Choosing Learning Technologies: Student Privacy + FIPPA

What is FIPPA?

An important consideration in the selection of Learning Technologies is student privacy, including the storage, access, and sharing of personal student information between systems.

In British Columbia, FIPPA, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, ensures through legislation that public bodies develop a privacy management program. Student private information must be protected, meaning stored for valid reasons and not shared without consent. Bill 22 – 2021, passed on November 25, 2021, brings significant amendments to FIPPA, including the possibility of storing personal information outside of Canada. This expands the possibility to leverage a broader set of tools and technology, however, at UBC all tools must go through a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), a risk management and compliance review process used to identify and address potential information privacy and security issues.

UBC requires that all information about our students is gathered only through technologies that are part of our learning technology ecosystem, meaning technologies that have been officially approved after a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA). If the use of another tool is required for a course, consent cannot be assumed by virtue of the student registering for the course.

What is personal information?

UBC defines personal information as “recorded information about an identifiable individual other than business contact information”. Even a student’s name and the fact that they are a UBC student is considered personal information. Learn more in the What is Personal Information Privacy Fact Sheet.

How does this affect my teaching?

All learning technologies supported by and implemented at UBC (e.g., Canvas, CLAS, Kaltura, etc.) have been officially approved after a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) and identified as FIPPA compliant. 

Many collaborative tools used in workplaces outside of UBC present potential information privacy and security issues, including Google Docs, Dropbox, Slack, Skype, and other tools.

Students should not be required to share their personal information with these services as part of any course (including setting up an account), however, if these tools support your pedagogical and instructional goals and help your students to build key skills and literacies, the following practices are recommended for their use.

  1. Be transparent with your students on why you’re asking them to use these tools.
  2. Provide a boiler-plate notice on what the tool is and how it stores their data (sample provided below):
    Data used for TOOL NAME may not be protected, as this tool has not gone through a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) and identified as FIPPA compliant. When you access the tool/site, you will be required to create an account. While TOOL NAME may have a privacy policy TOOL PRIVACY POLICY LINK, UBC cannot guarantee security of your private details on servers outside of Canada. Please exercise caution whenever providing personal information. You may wish to use a pseudonym to protect your privacy if you have concerns. Please feel free to contact UBC (access.and.privacy@ubc.ca) or TOOL NAME support team if you have any questions.
  3. According to CTLT (UBC’s Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology), one recommended approach to complying with FIPPA and encouraging student use of such tools is to suggest their use of a pseudonym or alias, a false name that a student can use to set up an account.
    • Cloud-based tools may be used under the following conditions:
      1. Inform students that one of the resources they will be using is located on cloud-based servers (ideally, in the course syllabus) and during the registration process (so students can take this into consideration before they register).
      2. Advise students that they are asked to provide consent to the storage of their personal information (typically their name and email address, but the fields must be specified in the instructions) on the system.
      3. If they are concerned about having their personal information stored in the cloud, then they can use an alias.
      4. If an alias is used, they will need to inform the instructor of the alias.
      5. The instructor must keep a record of the student’s choice to use a generic ID or alias

*NOTE that students are fine to use these tools with their own private information, but this must be voluntary – the above boiler-plate phrasing reflects the opt-in nature of students sharing their information in this way.

Alternative Tools

Many tools in use outside of UBC may not be FIPPA compliant, but there are other tools that function in similar ways. Provided below are FIPPA-compliant alternatives for popular tools.

Non-UBC Tool UBC Alternative
Dropbox MS Teams, OneDrive, Canvas Files
Gmail, Hotmail FASMail (student, staff, and faculty email)
Survey Monkey Qualtrics
Google Docs Microsoft Word / Microsoft Excel, Canvas Pages
Slack MS Teams, Mattermost (additional fee per year per teaching member)
Skype Zoom
Youtube Kaltura

Interested in doing a PIA for a tool you would like to use for teaching?

Contact us at lddi.educ@ubc.ca and we’ll connect with UBC Privacy Matters to evaluate the possibility of conducting a PIA.

Useful Resources

UBC Access and Privacy Guide

Student Privacy and Consent Guidelines (Centre for Teaching and Learning with Technology – UBC)

Privacy Fact Sheet: Providing Personal Information Outside Canada

Questions, comments, or concerns? Send us an email!

ETS Workshops

Canvas Access Requests & Shell Creation

ETS helps faculty in adding users to their courses (with certain limitations), as well as creating non-credit shells in Canvas. These requests can be submitted through email – please review the following information in order to familiarize yourself with the process and levels of access we support.

Canvas Access Requests

Canvas roles are managed through two separate systems – SIS and manual management.

Here at ETS, we can only assist with adding manually managed roles (with the exception of granting temporary access while appointments are being processed – more information below).

There is a total of 11 roles, each with different permissions. For a full breakdown of each role and what they are capable of, please refer to CTLT’s Canvas Roles and Permissions comparison chart. Highlighted below are the different roles we support and the permissions needed to grant access to each one.

Non-Credit Shell Creation


All credit shells (official course shells) in Canvas are automatically created by SIS once the course is confirmed, and students and instructors are automatically populated in the shell. This process can not be expedited by ETS – official shells must be created through SIS. However, ETS can create non-credit shells for faculty upon request. These shells are often used as instructor sandboxes (an open, private shell to experiment with Canvas), course development shells, cohort shells, communication shells, and more. If you are interested in having a non-credit shell created for any purpose in Canvas please contact ETS at ets.educ@ubc.ca. All access requests for non-credit shells are fully manually managed and don’t need any external permissions – users can be added with any role upon the request of the shell owner, as long as they have a CWL.

Canvas Assignment Due Date Bulk Editor

Canvas has a feature located within the Assignments tab, that allows instructors and course designers to modify the due dates and availability dates of multiple assignments.

Instructor Benefit

  • Easily review and modify due dates when teaching a course again.

Student Benefit

  • Help students plan for a successful term by ensuring accuracy of all due dates.

Instructions

Click on the Assignments tab

1. Click on the Assignments tab

Click on the menu bar button and click Edit Assignment Dates

2. Click on the menu bar button and click Edit Assignment Dates

Modify Assignment due dates by selecting a date range, selecting which assignments to edit and changing the dates.

3. Modify Assignment due dates by selecting a date range, selecting which assignments to edit and changing the dates

  1. All graded items in your course, including assignments, discussions, and quizzes, are listed in the Title column
  2. Current assignment due dates (if any) display in the Due At column
  3. Current availability dates (if any) display in the Available From and Available Until columns
  4. You can also view and edit differentiated due dates for students, sections, and groups
Shift dates for multiple assignments by selecting multiple assignments and clicking the Batch Edit button

4. Shift dates for multiple assignments by selecting multiple assignments and clicking the Batch Edit button

 
  1. To shift dates forward by a number of days, click the Shift Dates option
  2. Type the number of days to shift assignments dates in the Days field
  3. Or use the up and down arrow buttons to select the number of days
  4. To remove due and availability dates from all selected assignments, select the Remove Dates option
To revert date changes for an assignment, click the Remove icon. Reverting changes removes any date changes made to the assignment dates.

5. To revert date changes for an assignment, click the Remove icon. Reverting changes removes any date changes made to the assignment dates.

Remember to click Save!

6. Remember to click Save!

 

Wiki Embed Test

Assessment for Online Education

Take a look at these examples of faculty of education online courses. They all have examples of assignments in support of online learning, any one of which you can borrow.
Faculty of Education Online Course Designed for Online Education: Assessments
ECED508: Review of Research in Early Childhood Education Interactive Learning Record, Written Assignments, Blog Posts, Self-Assessments
EDCP538: Theory and Research in Environmental Education Multimodal Representation of Philosophy, Student-facilitated Seminars, Design Projects
EDCP544: Mathematics and Science Teaching and Learning with Technologies Written Assignment with Peer Reviews, STEM Design Project, Discussion, Multimedia Learning Activity
EDST515: Survey Research Design Written Assignments, Discussion
EDST525: Program Evaluation in Adult and Community Education Written Assignments, Discussion
EDUC440: Aboriginal Education in Canada Multimedia Stories, Quizzes, Discussion, Photovoice
EPSE317: Development and Exceptionality in the Regular Classroom Visual Design and Analysis, Curriculum Mapping
EPSE408: Educational Programming for Highly Able Learners Peer Collaboration, Curriculum Re-design, Peer and Self-Assessments
ETEC510: Design of Technology-Supported Learning Environments Keyword Reflection and Peer Dialogues, Collaborative Curriculum Design, Multimedia Artefact, Digital Storytelling
ETEC512: Applications of Learning Theories to Instruction Virtual Conference, Written Assignments, Concept Mappings, Self-Assessments
ETEC565A: Understanding Learning Analytics Analysis of Learning Analytics Data Sets, Discussions, Written Assignments, Multimedia Artefacts
LLED452: Disciplinary Literacies: Intermediate through Secondary Literacy Autobiography, Written Assignments, Discussion

Three Levels of Online Course Design Complexity

There is content from pre-existing online courses in the Faculty of Education that can be repurposed with very minor modifications, such as Assignments designed to take advantage of digital tools. 

The Basic

The Basic build will allow for many courses to be moved online and will provide a simple Canvas shell with supports provided to faculty members, including uploading content and an overview of how to use Canvas tools if needed. Many of the Faculty of Education courses being migrated to online-only in an accelerated timeline (COVID-related) will be provided a basic build in those cases where an online course version does not already exist. It is assumed that instruction of each course migrated online in a Basic build will include synchronous engagement (online face to face discussions/lecture) through Collaborate Ultra. Instructors would be using the pre-existing course materials, adapted to online presentation with the help of a PDCE/ETS support person.  The Basic build may or may not include all of the following elements that are in the prepared “course starter”:
  • Syllabus
  • Home Page (FoE banner and placeholders for Department and Instructor’s name)
  • Course Elements:
    • Announcements,
    • Syllabus,
    • Modules (structured for content),
    • Discussion forums
    • Assignments (repurposed from existing online courses, drop box for papers or quizzes),
    • Web Conferencing (Collaborate Ultra, Zoom)
    • Library Online Course Reserve (LOCR),
    • Grade (Gradebook),
    • People (Class list).
  • Navigation to the above course elements
Examples for each element with instructions and descriptions are provided for guidance

Level of support offered by PDCE/ETS Team

  • The Basic build will include 10 hours of Learning Design and 8 hours of PDCE/ETS support time.

An example of a Basic build online course:

The Advanced Basic

In addition to the elements included in the Basic Simple, it is assumed that the instructor of the Basic Advanced build will create some unique course content such as content modules, designed specifically for online delivery. The course will be either a combination of synchronous and asynchronous components or completely asynchronous. It may include the use of additional Canvas tools or applications external to Canvas. Support will be customized for the preferred online delivery requirements of the Instructor.  The Basic Advanced build may or may not include all of the following elements that are in the prepared “course starter”:
  • Syllabus
  • Home Page (FoE banner and placeholders for Department and Instructor’s name)
  • Course Elements:
    • Announcements,
    • Syllabus,
    • Modules (structured for content),
    • Discussion forums
    • Assignments (repurposed from existing online courses, drop box for papers or quizzes),
    • Collaborate Ultra,
    • Library Online Course Reserve (LOCR),
    • Grade (Gradebook),
    • People (Class list).
  • Navigation to the above course elements
Examples for each element with instructions and descriptions are provided for guidance

Level of support offered by PDCE/ETS Team

  • The Basic Advanced build will receive 15 hours of Learning Design and 15 hours of PDCE/ETS support time.
An example of a Basic Advanced build online course:

The Comprehensive

 The Comprehensive build is an enhancement of the Basic Advanced build with the addition of extensive content modules authored by faculty and customized design by a PDCE/ETS learning designer in collaboration with a faculty member. Supports will be provided to faculty members to upload content and learn how to use Canvas tools.  Comprehensive Build will include: Co- creation of content with a faculty member to include web based multi-media components (for example: Visual, simulations, conducting a lab)
  • Enhanced Assessment strategies (for example: final exam with multiple types of questions for large group; project-based learning assessment; performative multimodal assessment; portfolio; peer assessment)
  • Enhanced engagement strategies (for example: team-based collaborative work; experiential learning; case studies; self-testing; interactive content)
  • Additional educational technology tools (for example: H5P; Collaborative Learning Annotation System (CLAS); Mattermost).

Level of support offered by PDCE/ETS Team

  • The Comprehensive build will require 25 hours of Learning Design time and 15 hours of PDCE/ETS support time.
Examples of Comprehensive build online courses are available on Examples of Online Courses page.

Where did the Kaltura button go?

A recent Canvas update has changed the Rich Content Editor (RCE) used in Discussions, Assignments and other tools The Kaltura media icon has moved. Below are the new steps for how to access Kaltura media files and embed them using the new RCE interface.
  1. The Kaltura media button has migrated to a general “Apps” button at the far right hand side of the toolbar. On smaller screens or unexpanded windows, the plugin icon can be found by clicking the three vertical dots (more) icon.
  2. Once you have clicked on the Plugin icon, you will be taken to a popup window with listed applications. Click on Embed Kaltura Media and you should be taken to your Kaltura library. -Note: if you click on the arrow or Media Gallery and Embed, nothing will happen.
  3. From here, you can click “Embed” and the media should appear in your post as an embedded video frame.

Examples of Online Courses

This page provides you with access to a range of Faculty of Education online courses developed by faculty members in collaboration with PDCE/ETS Learning Designers and Learning Technology Support Staff. Explore these courses to see what is possible for your Online Course. Many of the assignments you will discover here can easily be migrated to your online course. For more examples of assignments, visit Assessment for Online Education. NOTE: You will need to sign in using your CWL to access these courses. If you have trouble accessing any courses, please contact ETS.
Course Dept (Level) Primary Author Additional Authors
ADHE327: Teaching Adults EDST (Undergraduate) Dave Smulders Erin Crisfield (original author), Dan Pratt, Carolina Palacios, Jude Walker
ADHE412: An Overview of Adult Education EDST (Undergraduate) Carolina Palacios Roger Boshier (original author), Cliff Falk
CNPS364: Family Education and Consultation ECPS (Undergraduate) Erika Horwitz –
ECED508: Review of Research in Early Childhood Education ECED (Graduate) Marlene Asselin –
EDCP538: Theory and Research in Environmental Education EDCP (Graduate) Oksana Bartosh –
EDCP544: Mathematics and Science Teaching and Learning with Technologies EDCP (Graduate) Marina Milner-Bolton –
EDST515: Survey Research Design EDST (Graduate) Lesley Andres –
EDST525: Program Evaluation in Adult and Community Education EDST (Graduate) Tom Sork Judith Ottoson (original author), Jane Dawson
EDUC440: Aboriginal Education in Canada B.Ed. (Undergraduate) Johanna Sam –
EPSE317: Development and Exceptionality in the Regular Classroom B.Ed. (Undergraduate) Jennifer Katz –
EPSE408: Educational Programming for Highly Able Learners ECPS (Undergraduate) Owen Lo Kristi Lauridsen, I-Chen Wu (PhD student)
ETEC510: Design of Technology-Supported Learning Environments MET (Graduate) Mary Bryson, Jeff Miller Lori MacIntosh, Chelsey Hauge
ETEC512: Applications of Learning Theories to Instruction MET (Graduate) Jenna Shapka Sunah Cho
ETEC565A: Understanding Learning Analytics MET (Graduate) Leah Macfadyen –
LLED452: Disciplinary Literacies: Intermediate through Secondary LLED (Undergraduate) Kedrick James Amber Moore, Ashley Moore

Online Course Design and Teaching Timeline

BEFORE SETTING UP YOUR COURSE

SETTING UP AND DESIGNING YOUR COURSE
  1. Chat with an ETS Learning Designer about your course
  2. Have a look at the ETS Showcase to see what is possible teaching online.
  3. Prepare your Library Online Course Reserves (LOCR).
  4. Use the Online Course Design Readiness Guide to make sure you have all the right elements in place.
GETTING READY TO TEACH
  1. Publish or un-publish Modules, Assignments and Discussions to hide and show specific items in your course before students have access.
  2. Check the course due dates are accurate and use Student View to make sure everything looks as it should for your students.
    • HINT: You can also submit an assignment as a Test Student and practice grading and providing feedback.
  3. Publish your course so students can access it when the term starts.
START OF TERM
  1. Use Faculty Service Centre (FSC) to send a message to your students, notifying them that the course is ready to access.
  2. Use Canvas's Announcements feature to send a welcome announcement.
  3. Participate in a 'Let's get to know each other' activity, where you can start establishing a learning community and modelling good online discourse.
DURING THE TERM
  • Post an Announcement in text or video at the start of every week to both introduce the next week’s topic and to wrap up the previous week, making sure to highlight relevant course events and student discourse.
  • Participate in online discourse (e.g., discussions, group chat, etc.). Instructors do not need to respond to every student, as online courses should be more about student discourse. The instructor should contribute to push the conversation forward, or to bring the conversation back, if it deviates.
  • Hold online office hours as needed through a web conferencing platform such as Bb Collaborate Ultra or Zoom.
  • Provide timely feedback to your students on their assessments. You can use voice or video feedback options in Canvas. Students appreciate this as it feels like you are meeting with them individually.
  • To ensure students are progressing through the course and engaging on the same activities together you can:
  • Check results for the initial Learner Experience Survey provided. This can inform how to adapt the design of your course and your instructional strategies for the rest of the term.
  • If multiple students have similar questions about an assignment or activity, update the instructions for these items to ensure clarity for other students.
AFTER THE TERM
Back to top