Webex in Education Setting: Student Data Privacy

[Gayle]

To anyone in the education community: Given the current COVID-19 situation, how is your district handling FERPA compliance with respect to classroom recordings?  Best practices using Trainings?  Board Policy re: consents?

[Kathy N.]

Our District decided that no recordings with student's would be allowed because of state Open Records requirements.  Basically if we allowed recordings with students, our Records manager would have to review and redact any recordings that were requested to insure no private student information was included. 

We also changed our default recording view to content only and all staff were notified. 

[Gayle]

Thanks, Kathy. We were fortunate enough to be using Webex in the classroom, albeit not extensively, before COVID-19 presented school districts the opportunity to find alternative methods of curriculum delivery.  Because the platforms currently available were not developed with the specific needs of student privacy in mind, we are all wise to not allow recording. The districts that I work with have instituted a no recording policy for now, but are trying to develop board policy and procedures within the current feature sets in Meetings/Events/Trainings to enable teachers to use the recording feature in relative safety. The value in recording is pretty extensive (access, pacing, review, remediation).  We are looking to learn from and collaborate with other school districts who may be in the same boat.  We hope this will be a workaround until a FERPA-safe platform is available.

[grejacob]

Gayle, 
Please see this link about Security. https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/trust-center/webex.html.  Cisco at heart is a security company and has taken that back bone and put it into Webex.  There are no concerns when it co Data Security and Privacy unlike some others that 'patch' security we own security.

We also have online classes geared toward Educators in a Virtual Environment.  Take a peak https://help.webex.com/landing/onlineclasses/upcomingClass/Educators#Webex-Meetings-Ramping-Up-for-Virtual-Education

[Gayle]

Thank you for your quick reply.  For two years, we have been primarily using Webex Meeting Center as a tool to bring work based learning opportunities into Career Technical Education classes.  Given the current COVID-19 environment, we hope to utilize the advanced features afforded by Events and Trainings for all. There has never been any doubt in our minds about Cisco's approach to data security and privacy. However, once a recording is made that includes the Personally Identifiable Information of students, it becomes a potential liability for the teacher and district if that PII is released. The value of these products as educational tools is beyond extensive, especially when considering the capacity to record. Recording affords access to curriculum and the ability to review, remediate, and pace. To date, most districts have been explicit in their instruction to teachers about not recording any part of their instructional time in order to eliminate the potential for unauthorized release of student PII.  Until there is a re-tooled platform for the education segment of the market that can mitigate (the risk will never be entirely eliminated) the unauthorized release of PII, the value of the tools will not be fully realized for education. Until then, districts who understand the value are looking for ways to be able to use the recording feature in a relatively safe manner.  I am working on behalf of three districts in NorCal that are looking to collaborate with similar districts in developing best practices with respect to recording, using the current framework of Meetings/Events/Training, until an education safe platform becomes available. Thank you to Cisco for these transformative tools. Let's work together!