new publication: Canvas and student privacy awareness

For the past couple of years, my colleague Dr. Meghan Dowell and I have been working on a paper on students’ awareness of what data the Canvas learning management system collects (and subsequently makes available to certain stakeholders). I’m a fan of Nick Proferes’s paper [Information Flow Solipsism in an Exploratory Study of Beliefs About Twitter] and have long wanted to do something similar related to LMSs. This is even more Meghan’s area of specialty than mine, though, so I was grateful that she was also interested in the subject and took the lead in turning this idea into reality.

The paper is now published with The Internet and Higher Education, and there are 50 days of free access available through this link. After January 24, I’ll need to upload the accepted version of the manuscript for continued access, but I really need to spend some time doing that for all of my publications, so I’m putting it off for now.

Here’s the abstract, to whet your appetite:

The proliferation of learning analytics (LA) in higher education has relied on data from learning management systems (LMS) like Canvas and Blackboard. Despite widespread LMS usage, students often lack clarity on what specific data is collected and who has access to it. This study explores undergraduate students’ understanding of data collection practices within the Canvas LMS. We analyzed survey responses of nearly 600 students, examining students’ awareness of the various roles within Canvas and their corresponding data permissions. The results reveal that students exhibit a general awareness of data collection practices but are unsure about the extent of their data’s use and misinterpret the use of data analytics, highlighting a a greater need for critical data education in universities and other educational contexts. These findings suggest a critical need for universities to enhance transparency and educate students on data privacy and LMS functionalities.

Like other literature on this subject, we found that students lack important knowledge on how Canvas collects and shares data; like other literature on the subject, we draw attention to the responsibility of universities and other institutions to better educate their students. I’m not doing as much ed tech research as I used to, but this paper feels really important to me, and I’m really glad it’s out!

• macro
• Work
• privacy
• surveillance
• Canvas
• learning analytics
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Meghan Dowell
• learning management systems
• Nick Proferes