I came
across an article: Mining Student Data
Could Save Lives. It is written by Michael Morris who is a
lieutenant with the University Police at California State University-Channel
Island.
In short, in
the aftermath of nearly every large-scale act of campus violence in the United
States, investigation has revealed that early-warning signs had been present
but not recognized or acted upon. An
example is the shooting in Virginia Tech.
Since many campuses across the country, as well as UNC-Charlotte already
provides students with an email address, personal access to the University’s
network, free use of campus computers, and wireless internet access for our
personal devices, Lieutenant Morris believes that colleges and universities
should mine their students. By logging
into the computers on campus with our username and password or emails to use
their wireless network, University officials could potentially mine data from
their students and analyze them since our data is under their control. The analysis could then be screened to predict
behavior to identify when a student's online activities tend to indicate a
threat to the campus.
Do you think
it’s a matter of invading your privacy if University officials can view your
search history, email messages, and Facebook/Twitter conversations posts just
to see if you’re a threat? Since I’m
under constant surveillance already from other data mining companies I think
that this can be a good and bad thing to do.
I have had conversations with friends on Facebook about my opinions on a
professor and what he/she can change in a course, but that doesn’t label me as
a threat to students or the professor. I
also used the computers to check my bank statements/accounts and I wouldn’t
want anyone to see it. Identity theft is one of the biggest detested problems
that we have today; we’re all human and even officials can become
unethical. Last, I wouldn’t want the
university that I attend to pour out a lot of money into this, having over
25,000 students is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Again, what do you think?
http://chronicle.com/article/Mining-Student-Data-Could-Save/129231/
This is a very interesting study. I feel the same as you, that it can be good and bad to inquire on college students activities on school computers. If a school decided to do this I think that they should start by notifying students that they will be potentially invading their privacy. This way students will have a heads up and if they prefer, not check things like bank accounts or other personal sights. I do think it would be beneficial to see the search history of students, in case it is something that would be a potential danger to other students. In response to the VTech shooting, if the school had been mining the history of the students searches, they might have found searches by the shooter that would have been red flags to the searchers.
ReplyDeleteI think this concept is a bad idea. I understand that at its core, all the university would be trying to do is better protect its students, but where do you draw the line. In the Bill of Rights, some of the most basic given rights are the freedom of speech, press and privacy. So where do you make the distinction between protecting your students from potential threats such as Virginia Tech, and over bearing big brother. I know that my information is already available to a wide range of companies, but I still don't believe my university belongs know every aspect of my life and every thing I may or may not do. Besides you also run the risk of someone who wishes to do harm being the person who is collecting the information.
ReplyDeleteThe positive, they could prevent a small amount of threats, maybe. Realistically it would be nearly impossible to search data on students that are having issues that havent been reported. If the schools would have had access to personal information, could they really prevent these instaces? Moreover what would they really do with the people? Personal gaurds? Seems to me they will push certain people to do things more dangerous by trying to control them.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI would not take issue with the university monitoring and mining activity on its computers. If there are benefits to be gained from that, why not? I intentionally limit my activity on university computers because of privacy issues, and so I don't really feel like my privacy would be invaded as a result of these measures. Perhaps if you are treating campus computers like your own personal computer and accessing your personal social networking accounts, internet banking, etc., then you have something to worry about. A good general rule that I operate by is to NOT engage in activities that I would not want to be tracked or monitored if I am using a public computer.
ReplyDeleteDaniel Powell, I agree with you. I try to limit my access on school computer as well. For viewing my bank statements and other personal usage, I try to check in and out as quick as I can. Although if monitor, they'll still see the sites that I visited, they'll realized that I did not pose any harm to anyone.
ReplyDeleteSo the use of university computers anywhere is technically not private. They own them and in my opinion I don't have an issue with them monitoring their "products". That being said, I do think there are issues mentioned above: unethical supervisors or perhaps a data mining system that would go "too far" (no need to collect student banking information).
ReplyDeleteHowever, if there were a way to collect sites visited, with student knowledge, it could help prevent campus violence and yet true masterminds could simply not utilize campus computers/networks for such research. Thus making the mined data irrelevant.
-Mary Alice