One of the EAT-PDP Project outputs reads as follows:
Greater understanding of the broader issues involved in students publishing blogs etc under the University of Kent brand
Last week Stewart Brownrigg and I sat down to draw up a list of headings which we felt should appear in the report we will write to satisfy this requirement. The list ended up being a lot longer than we thought it might be. It should be said from the outset that many of the scenarios we listed are, we hope, highly unlikely to arise. We do not consider our students to be champing at the bit just looking for a chance to insult, defame and libel staff, fellow students or members of the public. Nor are we overly concerned that our staff and services are likely to attract the sort of criticism that would warrant us having to take legal advice. However, the potential consequences of worst case scenarios are so serious that we considered it was definitely worth flagging up the issues.
A shortlist includes
- Libel
- Bringing the University into disrepute by the publication of text or images which are, for example, considered obscene or are deemed to ‘glorify terrorism’
- Publication of extreme political or religious views (eg promotion of extreme right or extreme left views, racist or homophobic statements etc)
- Publication of data contrary to the Data Protection Act
- Damaging the reputation of the University by publishing work of a poor quality (eg poorly researched work, erroneous analysis or conclusions, poorly written work etc)
Perhaps an obvious question is ‘so why let our students blog under the Kent brand?’ In part I have already answered this – we think the risk is low. For a worst case scenario to actually occur not only do we need to have the offending text or images but they will need to have been made public too. Then someone has to find those offending artefacts and be sufficiently disturbed by them to make a complaint. Most blogs within Mahara will be kept private or be available only to tutors and other registered Mahara users. A few will be included in pages that the users make available to prospective employers. We think that very few will actually be made public. If a student particularly wants to blog on a pet subject and get themselves widely read they are probably going to do this via one of the already available free blogging sites like WordPress.com or Blogger.com.
On the other hand, giving our students this opportunity will help them to reflect on their progress, to build their confidence and hone their writing skills. It is an integral part of Personal Development Planning at Kent. If bloggers wish to get comments from tutors or their peers it is easy to solicit this. Student blogging also sits well with the concept of openness widely supported by most academic instituions. It shows that we trust in our students, that we think them mature and responsible and are confident that the service we provide is more likely to attract accolades than brickbats.
This seems to be new territory for the Higher education sector. That is not to say that student blogs do not exist but so far the ones I have found appear to be ‘hand-picked’ and probably moderated. I am not aware of any student blogs bringing their alma mater into disprepute though there are examples of academics upsetting their employers with blog comments!
One other aspect of Kent’s decision to provide an in-house platform for student blogging which we felt worth investigating was the University’s duty of care to its students. What guidance and protection should we be offering to help students avoid compromising their security or confidentiality through the public interface we are supplying? Comments on all of the above are very welcome.