R v Cole (2011) & Creating a Wikipedia Page

Tuesday, October 22, 2019,  I attended the Wikipedia Editathon at Vancouver Island University (VIU) Library (Nanaimo, BC, Canada) co-sponsored by the VIU Library, VIU Centre for Excellence and Innovation in Learning (CIEL), and VIU Faculty of Education (department in which I work). I’d attended several of these editathons at VIU  prior to this event and had been contributing edits to Wikipedia for sometime–some of te edits were “substantive’– but for this editathon I wanted to do something completely new and more ambitious:

I wanted to contribute a completely new page to Wikipedia. 

I found a reference to the R v Cole cases on the “Workplace privacy” Wikipedia page that linked out to a news article. If you know me or my work, privacy & technology–especially in regard to Canadian education are squarely within my wheelhouse. When I investigated further on Wikipedia, there was no further information on this very interesting Canadian case on digital privacy in the workplace though there were stub articles on Canadian privacy cases such as R v Dyment . I decided I wanted to write up R v Cole (2011 ON CA) with context and information from the lower court’s R v Cole (2008 ON CJ) and the Ontario Superior Court (R v Cole, 2009 ON SC) cases from the primary court documents available via CANLII . It would be a first for me–and as I’m discovering, it’s definitely a process. I thought others might be interested in one academic’s journey from academic writer & sometime editor of other people’s Wikipedia content, to creator of an entirely new page (hopefully) on Wikipedia.

This is the first instalment on the process. I thought I would share the “academic prose” I posted in the very early drafts of the page content I wrote. I read through the primary case documents on CANLII to summarize the case in what I thought was an intelligible fashion. Given my initial exposure to being edited, I think it will be substantially different when it/if it “makes it” back to full fledged live Wikipedia status as “R v Cole (2011)”. This, and conversations I’ve had about my initial experiences being edited as a first-time Wikipedia page author are the inspiration for this series of blog posts.

In this first instalment, I thought I would demonstrate the content and style from my early drafts of the R v Cole (2001) page that I posted during/shortly after the VIU Wikipedia editathon (October 22, 2019). The page “R v Cole (2011)” was temporarily live and visible “as was” (a few twitter followers commented on the content while it was live) but a higher level editor placed the article in “draft” status.

I thought I would post my original–admittedly very “academically” style content here and follow it’s progression from this state to being “wikified” by Wikipedia editors. I also intend to discuss my experience of this process. I hope you’ll follow my journey.

____________________________________________________________________________

NB:

• Any material that follows was original material posted in Wikipedia in my Oct 22/19 attempts to create a new page under the title of “R v Cole (2011)” It includes all my edits as of 22:52, 22 October 2019 (and may include small character edits of the first editor to attempt interacting with the content).
• This content was drafted solely based on the primary legal documents listed in the “References” at the end.
• The section “Content for R v Cole (2011) as of 22:52, 22 October 2019” that follows below is licensed under CC-BY-SA.
  

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Content  for R v Cole (2011) as of 22:52, 22 October 2019 (CC-BY-SA licensed)

R v Cole, 2011 Ontario Court of Appeal

R v Cole was a 2011 Canadian court case in the Ontario Court of Appeal addressing the issue of digital workplace privacy. A key privacy issue was whether Richard Cole, a high school teacher, “had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of a work computer on which he was entitled to store personal information”. In R v Cole (2011 ON CA)^[1], the appeals court upheld an earlier pre-trial decision that the manner by which police obtained evidence from Cole’s computer violated of Cole’s Charter rights; therefore, the evidence was considered “impugned evidence” and was excluded.^[1]

Contents

• 1 Background
  • 1.1 Actions leading to seizure of Richard Cole’s computer (2006)
  • 1.2 Seizure of Cole’s computer & involvement of police (2006)
• 2 Case in Ontario Court of Justice & evidence exclusion (2008)
• 3 Crown appeal in Ontario Superior Court (2009)
• 4 Appeal in Ontario Court of Appeal (2011)
• 5 References

Background

Actions leading to seizure of Richard Cole’s computer (2006)

Richard Cole had been employed in the Rainbow School District (a public school district located in Sudbury, Ontario) since the 1990s where he taught computer science to grade 9 students. Though a teacher, Cole also had administrative rights to the school network^[2]. The court documentation implies that there may have been some tensions between the information technology staff and Cole regarding the level of administrative access held by Cole as a teacher.^[2] In 2006, an information technologist at the school used new network monitoring software and, while using it, identified an unusual amount of activity associated with Cole’s account on the network. The technician, Ryan Taggart, identified a hidden folder on Cole’s computer that contained “images of a naked girl …but that he [Taggart] was not sure she was a student at the school”^[1]. The images were later identified as images of a grade 10 girl in the high school where Cole worked.

After consulting with members of the information technology team, Taggart contacted the principal, Bruce Bourget, about the content discovered on Cole’s computer. Bourget “refused to look at the images, asking Ryan Taggart to cover them up before he looked at the face of the girl in question for the purpose of identifying her”.^[2] After reviewing the images, the principal identified the subject as a grade 10 female student at the high school. The principal ordered Taggart to copy the images onto a CD. Bourget then asked Taggart to keep the situation confidential to protect Cole’s privacy while Bourget consulted with his superiors at the Rainbow District School Board office for advice in how to proceed. Bourget was directed by the school board administration to seize Cole’s computer at the next available opportunity.

Seizure of Cole’s computer & involvement of police (2006)

The following morning, Cole surrendered his laptop to Principal Bourget but refused to provide his [Cole’s] password even when it was explicitly requested by Bourget. The computer was next brought to another district technician, George Gauthier, who made a copy of Cole’s temporary internet files. Gauthier then removed the grade 10 student’s images to prevent any additional individuals viewing the photos. At this point, the Rainbow School District had possession of the computer, the CD burned by Taggart, and copies of Cole’s temporary Internet files.

Subsequently, an unidentified individual (likely associated with the Rainbow District School Board) contacted Sergeant Rob Thirkill about the incident. Thirkill alerted the Cyber Crime Unit of the Greater Sudbury Police Service. Detective Constable Burtt traveled to the Rainbow School District and seized the computer used by Cole, the CDs burned by Taggart, and the temporary files copied by Gauthier. Burtt then sent the hardware and files to the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service for further analysis. Court documents state that the Sault Ste. Marie Police “also obtained the laptop of the student from whose computer the female student’s pictures had originally been downloaded”^[2]. These images of the grade 10 student were later revealed in the court documents to have originated from the grade 10 girl’s “boyfriend’s computer”.^[2]

As there had been no warrant obtained for the files or hardware, Detective Constable Burtt was asked during proceedings whether he “had considered obtaining a warrant at any stage.”^[2] Burtt stated that “because the laptop belonged to the Rainbow District School Board, there was no need for him to get a warrant.”^[2] He noted that he was “aware that there was personal material on Richard Cole’s computer” when it was sent to the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service for further analysis.^[2]

Case in Ontario Court of Justice & evidence exclusion (2008)

“On a pre-trial application, the trial judge excluded the evidence pursuant to s. 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, finding that the police had infringed the appellant’s s. 8 rights because he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the laptop’s contents.”^[1] The court found that the Rainbow School District did not violate Cole’s Section 8 Charter Rights and found that “the overriding obligation on the part of the principal [is] to ensure the health and safety of his students”.^[2] The court also noted that when informed of the situation, Bourget addressed Cole’s privacy rights by asking Taggart to maintain confidentiality while Bourget contacted his superiors at the Board for further direction. As the court stated, “Once the information was disclosed to the principal, he had no choice but to act”.^[2]

While there was some muddiness around whether the principal and school board were acting as agents of the Greater Sudbury Police Service in seizing the hardware and files, the court found Cole’s Section 8 Charter rights “came into focus” once the police arrived in the school district and seized the computer, CD, and temporary files.^[2]

The court found Cole had been “given the exclusive use of” the computer supplied by the school district where his exclusivity was secured with a password.^[2]  The court stated that the computer “was physically seized from him [Cole] without his consent” and that the computer was “locked” by Cole’s password that he refused to give Principal Bourget.^[2] The computer’s  “contents could not be accessed, except when actually in use or when one was in possession of the password”.^[2] The court also determined “that there existed some protocol at least to advise staff of any imminent intention to recover actual possession of their computers.  Barring this, staff were allowed to use their computer for limited personal purposes and, indeed, to take them home during the summer recess, whether for personal use or for the purpose of preparing their fall courses. the actual policy seems to have been to accept that staff would load private material onto their computers.” ^[2]

Though court was unable to clearly determine if the school’s information technologists or administrators (school and school board)  had been acting as agents of the police, once Detective Constable Burtt of the Greater Sudbury Police Service became involved, “the seizure of the material …without a warrant was egregious and constituted a breach of Richard Cole’s section 8 Charter rights”.^[2]

The available information in court documents implies that there were no conclusions made as to Cole’s inclinations towards child pornography or pedophilia. In fact, the court implied a lack of evidence in this respect:

There was no suggestion that this material had been obtained from a pedophile or from someone engaging in the trade of such material, that there was a commercial or exploitative aspect to its production, that it was extorted from those originally making or possessing it or that the very images contained such depiction of human sexuality as would shock the conscience of the average citizen. Again, while I do not think that the presence of sexual images depicting the accused’s wife on the same computer hard drive itself renders the impugned material non-pornographic, it situates to some degree the accused’s preoccupation and orientation.  This does not seem to be in the nature or attraction to child pornography.^[2]

The Ontario Court of Justice went on to conclude in 2008 that though the school had reason to be concerned for the welfare and safety of students, it had an equal right to protect individual’s privacy: “In approaching the situation, the reasonably informed man or woman, aware of the privacy rights of each citizen and appreciative of such rights would surely insist on due process, particularly when nothing was to be gained by denying it.”^[2]

Ultimately, the 2008 decision by Justice Guay “excluded the impugned evidence, consisting of the respondent’s laptop computer, the contents of the hard drive, the school’s compact disks and the school board’s temporary internet file disk under s. 24(2) of the Charter“.^[3]  As the Crown’s case rested solely on the computer & copied files, to further pursue the case, they had to appeal.

Crown appeal in Ontario Superior Court (2009)

In R v Cole (2009,ON SC)^[3], the Crown appealed Justice Guay’s exclusion of the Crown’s only evidence: Cole’s computer, the CDs, and temporary files. The Crown did not dispute the judge’s finding that the school had not violated Cole’s Charter rights, although the Crown did indirectly question this finding by calling out previous statements indicating “the subject school board and its school are statutory authorities subject to the Charter“.^[3]

The Crown set forth 3 arguments for its appeal related to Guay’s errors in determining

• “the respondent had a reasonable expectation of privacy”;
• the search of Cole’s computer and files was warrantless and not conducted in a reasonable manner;
• “to exclude the evidence under s. 24(2)” and in judging the seriousness of Cole’s offense.^[3]

Superior Justice Kane found “The Charter analysis in this case cannot be determined without considering the respondent’s employment context, his employer’s ownership of and issuance to him of a laptop computer, and the rules regarding his use of that computer, including the permissibility of personal use and the user’s right of privacy.”^[3] The judge put forward an decision defining a “subjective expectation of privacy” vs an “objective expectation of privacy”.^[3] Justice Kane accepted that Cole “had a subjective expectation of privacy in the data stored on the laptop and the school’s server, given his possession of the computer, his assignment of a password to that computer and the shading of the file folder containing the female student’s images”; however, given that the laptop was the property of the Rainbow School District, was subject to a verbally explained “User Agreement” for employees (discussed yearly though not signed as in the case of students), and was subject to Rainbow School District Policy Statement P.9.06, the judge found Cole did not have an objective expectation of privacy. Rainbow District School Board Policy 9.06 outlined “acceptable use of information technologies”, specifically

• Information technology systems and all data and messages generated on or handled by board equipment are considered to be the property of Rainbow District School Board, and are not the property of users of the information technology;
• Rainbow District School Board information technology generally must be used only for business activities.  Incidental personal use is permissible so long as; i) it does not consume more than a trivial amount of resources, ii) it does not interfere with staff productivity, iii) it does not pre-empt any business activity.
• Inappropriate content –Users may not post, access or attempt to access material that is inappropriate for a school or administrative office environment, such as (but not limited to) offensive, sexually explicit, obscene, profane, inflammatory, or degrading materials.  (See also Policy and Operational Procedures P.9.05 – Pornographic Material.)
• Privacy- E-mail is considered private and the e-mail system is considered property of Rainbow District School Board.  However, the administrative team can legally open private e-mail if that action seems necessary for the on going health of the system or if inappropriate use is suspected.  In cases where access to a user’s account for system/trouble-shooting purposes is required, attempts to request the user’s permission will be made first.  When a user’s account is accessed, the user shall be notified.^[3]

Ontario Superior Court Justice, Paul Kane found that Guay “failed to assess the respondent’s reasonable expectation of privacy independently of the police’s involvement” and granted the Crown appeal finding that “Mr. Cole’s subjective expectation of privacy was not objectively reasonable”. ^[3]

Appeal in Ontario Court of Appeal (2011)

On appeal in R v Cole (2011,ON CA)^[1], Justice Karakatsanis reviewed the following 4 questions:

1. Did the appellant have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the laptop?
2. If so, did (a) the technician or (b) the principal or (c) the school board breach s. 8 of the Charter?
3. Did the police breach s. 8 of the Charter by searching the laptop and the compact discs without a warrant?
4. If so, did the trial judge err in excluding the evidence?

Karakatsanis concluded that Cole did, in fact, have “a reasonable expectation of privacy from state intrusion in the personal use of his work computer and in the contents of his personal files on its hard drive. However, his expectation of privacy was modified. He had no expectation of privacy with respect to access to his hard drive by his employer’s technician for the limited purpose of maintaining the technical integrity of the school’s information network and the laptop.”^[1] The judge concluded that while the Charter applied to the school district and its employees, “the search by the technician, the principal and the school board officials did not breach s. 8 of the Charter. The technician was acting within the scope of his functions when he came across the student photographs and thus did not violate the appellant’s modified privacy interests. The principal and school board officials acted reasonably under the authority of the Education Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. E.2 to protect students and a safe learning environment.”^[1]

The judge stated the school “expressly permitted [Cole and other teachers] to store personal information on their work computers. Accordingly, the school board did not have the authority to consent to the search of a work laptop in which they had permitted personal use by the teacher.”^[1] Karakatsanis found “there was no evidence that anyone monitored or policed the teachers’ use of their laptops, nor did the AUA [Acceptable Use Agreement] or the Policy and Procedures Manual address this issue…to the extent that the terms of the AUA applied to teachers, the evidence shows that they were modified by the policy and by convention and usage of the teachers’ laptops.”^[1]

Ultimately, the appeals judge agreed with Guay’s earlier decision in R v Cole (2008, ON CJ): once the police seized the laptop and the copied files from the Rainbow District School Board, they  violated Cole’s “right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure” and the evidence should be excluded.^[1] In particular, Karakatsanis pointed out “there was no urgency and no exigent circumstances and a warrant could easily have been obtained” by the police.^[1]

In concluding this case, Justice Karakatsanis noted the lack of Canadian case law or statue dealing with the issue of digital privacy in the workplace circa 2011: “There is little authority in Canada on the issue of whether an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in [a] work computer.”^[1]

References

1. Ontario Court of Appeal (2011). “R. v. Cole (2011 ON CA 218)”. CANLII. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
2. Ontario Court of Justice 278 (2008). “R. v. Cole, 2008 ONCJ 278”. CANLII. Retrieved 2019-10-22
3. Ontario Superior Court. “R. v. Cole (2009, ON SC)”. CANLII. Retrieved 2019-10-22.

 

(Material from the section “Content for R v Cole (2011) as of 22:52, 22 October 2019” and following is  licensed under CC-BY-SA.)

Digital Professionalism & Why I Didn’t Tweet @NSTeachersUnion During Job Action Last Week.

Last week, Nova Scotia teachers were in the process of job action that culminated in a strike on February 17. If you follow me on Twitter, you might be aware that about that same time I was preparing to present at WestCAST 2017. WestCAST is the Western Canadian Association for Student Teaching. WestCAST conferences bring together education students and faculty from across Canada with a focus on western provinces. The most recent conference, #WestCAST2017 , was hosted by my Vancouver Island University Faculty.

On the first day of  WestCAST 2017, I was delivering a presentation entitled, “Digital Footprints & Digital Professionalism for Today’s Educator” (If you want to find a version of the presentation and resources, check out the Resources page of The Centre for Educaiton & CyberHumanity @ VIU https://wordpress.viu.ca/cyberhumanity/resources/  ). That same morning, the Nova Scotia teachers and their union were in the news. As an extension of my WestCAST activities, I thought about directing a tweet to the @NSTeachersUnion account on the topic of digital professionalism but decided against it. During my WestCAST session, I discussed with attendees why I wanted to tweet the Nova Scotia Teachers’ Union, what I wanted to say, and why I didn’t do it.

As a previous K-12 teacher of many years in British Columbia, I have been a long standing member of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) and have served on the executive of a provincial specialists’ association (BCTF PSA).  I respect the work that BCTF does to promote teaching and learning in British Columbia. It is not news that the BCTF and BC provincial government have had a contentious history.  (If unfamiliar, check out the decade plus interactions that reached the Supreme Court of Canada: http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-teachers-win-landmark-supreme-court-of-canada-victory ).

My teaching career in BC has spanned a number of job actions coordinated by the BCTF in response to wide variety of issues. I have walked a number of picket lines.  However, during the BCTF’s more recent job actions around 2014, I had been working in post-secondary for a number of years.  I watched from the sidelines as K-12 teachers became frustrated and angry over their ongoing situation. What was significantly different this time was that many teachers had social media accounts and were using them to voice their frustrations—and not always in professional ways. As the Vancouver Sun reported, “Social media has become the online extension of the picket line for teachers” (Robinson, Shaw, & Sherlock 2014). The Sun article went on to cite the BCTF Media Relations Officer Rich Overgaard when he noted that the social media activity was “unprecedented…completely constant and sustained since the beginning of the rotating strikes” (Robinson, Shaw, & Sherlock, 2014). While the BCTF has put time and effort into providing social media and professionalism training for members, whether through ignorance, frustration, or what boyd (2008; yes, she uses a lower case “b”—not a type-o here) would term a lack of awareness of “unintended audiences”—there remained teachers who coloured way outside the lines of what I consider digital professionalism.

In 2014, I’d already been teaching about digital footprints and professionalism here at #VIUEd for some time. During my 2014 presentations on the topics at the time, students raised the issue of teachers’ vitriolic comments, vulgar language, and bitter engagements on social media which involved the government, members of the public, & even fellow teachers at times. (BTW such comments on the topic continued for a year or so after.) Now, let me clarify, not all teachers in BC on social media were interacting in what might be considered as unprofessional ways, but there were enough of them self-identifying as teachers (through profiles, posts, or related content) for a person interested in social media and digital professionalism to take notice. Moreover, this slippage in civility was not one sided and involved people from other sectors. It is interesting to note that despite the “unprecedented” activity of BC teachers on social media in 2104 and people anecdotally remarking on the nature of the content—as far as I know, no research has been done on BC teachers’ social media content, perceptions, and the effects before, during, and after job action. In my opinion, there’s a thesis in there for someone—unfortunately, not me. I’m too busy working on my current PhD thesis on the topic of information privacy and teachers’ use of educational technology.

Some who discuss the professional use of social media might question the use of an educator’s own personal/professional account for  activism. (Note: This type of account is separate from a school-sponsored or authorized presence.) I, however, think there are appropriate and inappropriate times for such uses, with degree or extent of the impact as an additional consideration. I think that there are ways to do it “professionally”. If you are a principled person, there will come a time in your career that challenges to those principles might move you to speak using your professional voice on platforms such as social media; however, that action needs to be considered, conscious of the extent and implications of your actions as well as their ramifications; should be founded on solid ethical ground, and you must be willing to be held accountable for it later. If you balk at any of those points, you likely shouldn’t do it.

So, what did I want to tweet to the @NSTeachersUnion last week but didn’t? I wanted to suggest to the @NSTeachersUnion that they remind members of the potential professional impact of their social media posts during their job action and any period of continued negotiations or contention. Why didn’t I? As discussed during my #WestCAST2017 session, it is important during events like strikes or similar job actions, to have people emotionally committed to collective action—it builds solidarity and support for your cause. As so frequently happens on social media, I was ultimately concerned that any comment or reminder about digital professionalism during challenging times could be seen as a threat to the aims of their job actions, and potentially make me the target of misdirected anger and abuse. I guess this blog post could do the same, but I think in this digital age, when teachers and their unions move into periods of contention, they should pause to consciously and publicly remind themselves of their digital professionalism .

In the end, I will leave you with a quote from Ellaway, Coral, Topps & Topps’ (2015) article “Exploring Digital Professionalism”. Though published in Medical Teacher, their quote holds true for the teaching profession in general:

“Acts of protest and dissent using digital media…need to be undertaken responsibly and professionally” (p. 846).

BTW: This is my personal/professional blog and is not sponsored by my place of employment. 😉

References

• boyd, d. (2008). Taken out of context: American teen sociality in networked publics. PhD Dissertation. University of California-Berkeley, School of Information. http://www.danah.org/papers/TakenOutOfContext.pdf
• Ellaway, R., Coral, J., Topps, D. & Topps, M. (2015). Exploring digital professionalism. Medical Teacher, 37(9), 844-849.
• Robinson, M., Shaw, G., & Sherlock, T. (2014). From the picket line to online: Teachers go to battle using social media. Vancouver Sun.   http://www.vancouversun.com/business/from+picket+line+online+teachers+battle+using+social+media/9941977/story.html

 

Becoming “Twitterate”: A Glossary

A Twitter⁺ Glossary

“Becoming ‘Twitterate’: A Glossary” by Julia Hengstler available as PDF & used under Creative Commons-BY, NC, SA–license here . Note: Some definitions adapted from Hengstler, J. (2011). Managing your digital footprint: Ostriches v. eagles. In S. Hirtz & K. Kelly (Eds.), Education for a Digital World 2.0 (2^nd ed.). Open School/Crown Publications: Queen’s Printer for British Columbia, Canada. Available at http://bit.ly/1s92ivc .

Account. A Twitter account is necessary to post content or engage in Twitter conversations; an account can be created by an individual or group, and pseudonyms are possible; you do not need an account to view others’ publicly shared Twitter content; beware of ‘fake’ accounts; an account is like a plant and should be tended (participate in posting content and exchanges with others) to be healthy.

Block. Process whereby you prevent another account from being able to follow you, add you to their Twitter lists or see your tweets while they are still logged into Twitter; if your Twitter account is public, blocked users, are able to access your Twitter page content via a browser and see what you’ve posted there; the other user will still be able to mention you (@yourusername) in their tweets & you will not receive notification; not knowing what others say about you is not always best.

Client. A software program that allows you to access and use your Twitter account; the basic client is provided by Twitter (www.twitter.com ); other clients like Tweetdeck, or Hootsuite, provide extended functions and features; some clients are free & some fee based while others have a blended approach.

Deactivaction. Process of killing your account; once deactivation is requested there is a 30 day window for deletion; you can reactivate an account that is still in the 30 day grace period.

Digital footprint. Traces or records of a person’s online activities that may be aggregated to create a profile about a person (including groups/organizations); footprint data collected may be active—content voluntarily contributed by a person—or passive—data collected about a person by a second or third party—or second-hand—contents others contribution about you.

Direct Message. Original post by a Twitter user to another user considered a “private” communication; content usually prefaced by “D” or “DM”; users may only direct message those who are following them; a DM is not visible to followers or on the webpage version of any public accounts; it is very important to understand that the privacy of such direct messages can only be assumed and never assured; users are still able to cut/paste or screen capture such ‘private’ content.

EdChat. A subset of Twitter Chats (see Twitter Chat)  that are educationally themed; each chat has its own hashtag (see Hashtag; e.g. EdChatDE= edchat Germany); the original #edchat started in 2009 to help educators stay current with developments in the field; currently there are many variants, while many are geared to K-12 education, there are a number of post-secondary ed chats (e.g. #CdnPSE=Canadian Post Secondary Education chat; #digped=Digital Pedagogy chats hosted by Hybrid Pedagogy: A Journal of Teaching & Technology, #higheredchat, #msachat =social justice in higher ed; #fycchat = freshman youth composition; #HELiveChat=higher ed chat sponsored by UK’s The Guardian) (See http://www.onlinecollege.org/2012/09/09/50-great-twitter-chats-academia/ ); often a ‘host’ Twitter account is created like @Cdnedchat for #Cdnedchat  that happens on Mondays 5 pm PST/8 pm PST.

Follow. Act of subscribing to receive content from a particular Twitter account in your timeline; anyone can follow any other account’s public Twitter feed at any time—unless an account has blocked you (See Block).

Follower. Person or group subscribing to receive content from a particular Twitter account; if a Twitter account is public, people can see who the account follows—this can reflect on your digital footprint (See Digital Footprint).

Handle. Your chosen username preceded by the “@” sign (e.g. Julia Hengstler’s handle is @jhengstler); you pick your username—choose wisely, especially if you will be using for professional purposes; remember that even if not for professional purposes, it is likely your twitter account can & will be connected to you.

Hashflags (and Twitter Emojis). Twitter has sets of icons that can be embedded in a Tweet; some icons are commissioned/purchased for use during advertising campaigns (hashflags) while others are more basic (emojis); paid icons are enabled for a specific event/occasion; paid icons go through periods of being active so when the ad or event campaign ends, the tweets (even old ones) will lose their icons but keep their hashtag text—which allows Twitter to re-cycle icons for future uses;  began in 2010 with World Cup to represent countries by flags; to further complicate matters, not all platforms support the images (e.g. visible on Twitter.com but not in TweetDeck or third party apps); if you want visuals in your Tweets, you can also cut & paste them from sites like https://www.piliapp.com/twitter-symbols/ .

Hashtag. A keyword preceded by the “#” sign associated with a tweet to make it more discoverable, or to support aggregation of tweets on a particular topic (like putting a handle you can grab on a box); more than 1 hashtag can be associated with a tweet (e.g. #postsecondary #education #highered); hashtags ‘count’ for your 140 character limit; there are commonly used hashtags, but you can also create your own like #oltd506 for VIU’s Education course, OLTD 506; it is a good idea to investigate if a hashtag you’re thinking of using is already in use and if so what it’s associated with.

Like. When you endorse a particular tweet, retweet, or reply (See Tweet, Retweet, or Reply), by clicking the “heart button”; your ‘likes’ are listed in the “Likes” tab of your Twitter profile page (See Profile); other people can see your “likes” from your profile page; what you like can determine what ‘sponsored’ content is displayed to you; what you like reflects on your digital footprint (See Digital Footprint).

List. Way to organize tweets from various accounts to see them in an aggregated stream; you can create and define lists by topic or interests; if your Twitter account is public, others can see your lists (and what accounts are in them) from your profile page and your lists can reflect on your digital footprint (See Digital Footprint); when you add a user to your list, Twitter notifies them.

Meet-up. An informal meeting of people in a Twitter network generally organized by a person or group that determines the purpose, specific time and place, and shares the details for the meeting via Twitter; individuals then physically gather face-to-face and participate; at larger events such as conferences, meet-ups can be good networking opportunities for people who have been connecting via Twitter around special interests.

 

Mentions. When someone posts a tweet, retweet, or reply, (See Tweet, Retweet, or Reply) including your Twitter handle (@yourusername). Twitter clients (See Clients) can monitor your mentions in columns (e.g. TweetDeck); if you block someone you will not see if they mention you (see Block); the mentions timeline is a subset of notifications (see Notifications).

Mute.  Allows you to hide a particular account’s feed from your timeline without unfollowing or blocking it; the other account is not notified that they’ve been muted; you can unmute accounts at any time; muted accounts can still follow you, & send you direct messages (See Direct Message) ; when a muted account mentions you (see Mention), you will see the tweet (See Tweet) in your notifications (see Notifications);  any tweets received prior to muting would be visible as usual; if you do NOT follow the muted account, you will not see their tweets that mention you in notifications; For information re. using mute see https://support.twitter.com/articles/20171399#

Notifications. A special timeline in Twitter that includes any content relevant to your tweets (See Tweet) and handle (@yourusername); information includes latest retweets (See Retweet) of your content, tweets directed to you (replies or mentions using @yourusername), which tweets were liked (See Like) and by which accounts, & any new followers (See Follower); notifications can be filtered by type—certain Twitter clients (See Client) have more functions for filtering content.

Page. If you choose to publicly share your Twitter content, your content will be made publicly available as a web page with a URL similar to www.twitter.com/yourusername (e.g. the publicly available content from Julia Hengstler’s account is found at www.twitter.com/jhengstler); people without Twitter accounts can read your public Twitter content from this location using any web browser.

Pin. When you maintain a particular tweet at the top of your profile page by clicking on the “…” button and selecting “Pin to your profile page”; a new pin displaces the last pin; works in Twitter but not necessarily in all Twitter clients (See Client).

Poll. You can create and share Twitter polls with your followers; Twitter polls can have questions with multiple response options; voting remains live for 24 hours; how an individual votes is not publicly shared, though aggregated data is available; For how-to see http://www.simplehelp.net/2015/10/23/how-to-create-a-poll-on-twitter/ ; Note: other 3^rd party apps like https://twtpoll.com also allow you to run twitter polls with increased functionality and duration; could be used as a ‘response system’ (a.k.a. ‘clickers’) in a course.

Private Account. A private Twitter account is one where only authorized people have direct access to the account’s tweets (See Tweet); this doesn’t prevent someone accessing content and copy/pasting it outside of the restricted circle—though the retweet function will be disabled; with a private account users have to approve all requests to follow (See Follow) you; your tweets will be excluded from public Google searches, though your followers (See Follower) will be able to search them in Twitter; if you direct a tweet at another user using @thatuser’sname , they will not see it unless they are one of your approved followers; if you convert from a public to a private account, any previously public content will become private from that point forward; you can only share links to specific tweets from your timeline with approved followers.

Profile. Information you that you choose to share with Twitter and the public; includes the name you supplied (can be pseudonym), your twitter username (See Handle); it can also include other links you provide, brief biographic or other statement, and a profile picture; your profile picture will appear next to your tweets when others view it in their twitter streams; sharing your bio or a statement allows others to connect with you on the basis of interests—people might avoid following or replying to accounts with no descriptive information; clicking through to an account’s profile can help you determine if you would like to follow or otherwise interact with that account.

Promoted. This is content that is delivered to you by Twitter in exchange for money from their customers—Twitter advertising; accounts, tweets, moments, trends, & videos can all be promoted by Twitter advertisers and displayed to/in your Twitter account when you login; various hashflags are a form of promoted ad campaigns (see Hashflag).

Protected Tweet: A tweet where you have actively chosen to restrict access to just your followers (see Followers); while the general public does not see a protected tweet, your followers can use cut/paste or screen capture to further share it.

Reply. On Twitter, an original post of 140 characters or less directed to a particular Twitter user; retweets are prefaced by “@” followed by the username of the person to whom its addressed; replies can help structure a conversation thread; many Twitter clients allow users to monitor replies regardless of whether you are following the person who posted the reply; replies can be a way to contact people who are not following you; a reply is visible to followers and on the webpage version of any public accounts; any account names embedded in the reply count in your 140 character limit.

Retweet. A tweet (See Tweet) from another Twitter user that is re-published on Twitter with attribution; a retweet is usually prefaced by “RT” followed by the contributor’s account name; attribution may be multilayered to indicate the path the original tweet traveled; a RT is visible to followers and on the webpage version of any public accounts; you can see who retweeted your content in notifications (see Notifications).

Settings. In this area of your account you can control aspects such as username, language, time zone, security/privacy, password, muted accounts, blocked accounts, etc.; go to your Twitter page at www.twitter.com , log in, click on your profile picture/icon and select settings.

Storify. An online application that allows users to capture data from Twitter (and other social media platforms), edit, organize and republish it; useful for curation especially for Twitter chats (e.g. https://storify.com/jhengstler/twittersmarter-chat-9-15-16) ; See https://storify.com/

Stream. The timeline of a Twitter account organized in chronological order or that can be viewed publicly online.

Timeline. This is content streamed in real-time to your account and organized in chronological order.

Timestamp. Content separate from the body of a tweet (See Tweet) that indicates when a tweet was posted; depending on your Twitter client (See Client)—can appear above or below a tweet, or in details of a tweet.

Trends. A special timeline visible in Twitter (available on your home page on www.twitter.com ) identifying popular or powerful hashtags or content; by default preferences are determined by Twitter based on your account information but you can manually change your preferences.

Tweet. A posting of 140 characters or less via Twitter sent to a user’s network or follower’s (see Follower); tweets may carry embedded links, images, video (recorded & streaming); a tweet is by default public but you can protect your tweet (See Protected Tweet).

Twitter Chat. A semi-formal online Twitter exchange among several accounts (see Account); a scheduled event generally organized by a person or group that generally follows a Q & A format around a specific, pre-determined theme hosted by a designated moderator; participation is open to anyone with a Twitter account by using the hashtags (see Hashtag)  & following the Q&A format; sorting through related tweets can get confusing as people often use a Twitter chat hashtags outside of a scheduled event to tag tweets; often a ‘host’ Twitter account is created like @Cdnedchat for #Cdnedchat  or @HigherEdChat for  #higheredchat; other e.g.s of postsecondary Twitter chats include #msachat =social justice in higher ed; #fycchat = freshman youth composition chat; #HELiveChat=higher ed chat sponsored by UK’s The Guardian); See http://www.onlinecollege.org/2012/09/09/50-great-twitter-chats-academia/ .

Twitter. A social networking platform for posting informal online journal or diary entries in postings of 140 characters or less called tweets (see Tweet)  that are shared with followers (See Follower);  Twitter allows for embedded links, images, and videos; See: www.twitter.com .

Unfollow. When you remove someone from the accounts you are subscribed to receive content from on Twitter; procedure may have social ramifications though unfollowing may be required to preserve professionalism or the character of your digital footprint (See Digital Footprint).

Unpin. When you release a particular pinned (See Pin) tweet (See Tweet) from the top of your profile (See Profile) page by clicking on the “…” button and selecting “Unpin from profile page”.

Capture Twitter chats & #edchats with Storify

Quick tips to capture an #edchat or Twitter chat with Storify

• Create a Storify account @ storify.com.
• Participate in your edchat and note its hashtag (but this will work for any topic with a hashtag in Twitter).
• When the edchat is over, login to Storify
• Select “Create New Story”

• In right column click on Twitter icon, enter the hashtag in the search field (you can specify some other items using the search field like Type, Location, Language if you need), & click on search icon

• Storify collects all relevant tweets w/ hashtags in right hand column
• In the Story panel on the left, create a headline like “[Name of edchat] [Date of edchat] [hashtag]” like “EdchatDE November 5/2016” & add description if you want
• Pick the tweets on the right that you want to add to your “Story”
  • I usually pick “add them all” at the top of the column

• You can also scroll through the list on to drag/drop specific ones into your Storify story.

• It’s now up to you if you want to “edit” the Tweets in the Storify window:
  • Delete extraneous comments (e.g. do you want to keep the “introduce yourself” responses in your content here?);
  • Organize content users strung across multiple tweets that got interspersed with other’s tweets (e.g. ones that have “1/2” and 2/2” indicate it’s a 2 part tweet);
  • Organize the question tweets by an edchat leader with all the answers (i.e. put Q1 first and all the A1 responses under it; move on to Q2 and then organize all the Q2 ).
• Once you have edited the number and order of the tweets to your likking, publish your Storify and share the link using the “Share” button (you can pick the social media where you want to share the link via icons).
• Of course you don’t have to share, and could keep the edited copy for yourself…but others might be interested.

If you have any other tips or tricks for capturing #edchats or Twitter chats with Storify, please feel free to add them in the comments.

Uncovering Privilege in Online Education

“Tethered.” A. Worner, 2014. CC-BY,SA https://flic.kr/p/ow/Roub

(Download my full paper, “Uncovering Privilege in Online Education: Applying McIntosh’s Lens” here.)

This past semester I was privileged (pun intended) to audit Soci 470, a course in educational sociology given by my colleague, Dr. Jerry Hinbest, in the Sociology Department at Vancouver Island University (VIU). While proximity made the course accessible for me (Jerry’s office and classroom are one floor up from me), the course also made me further question the ‘accessibility’ of online education for students in general.

People who have taken OLTD 506  with me in VIU Education Department’s  Online Learning and Teaching Diploma Program over the past 3 years are aware of my equity concerns when teaching about social media use in education. Equity and access are strong threads in the technology integration workshops I run for our VIU Ed pre-service and graduate students. They are also evident in my Twitter feed (@jhengstler). Yet, it was Jerry’s course, the readings and interactions with his undergraduate students that gave me the tools and time to reflect on my position in greater detail. The paper I’ve posted began as a paper and presentation submitted for Soci 470. In this version of the work, I’ve attempted to refine my thoughts for a more general audience. ( I also use Chicago vs. APA citation style, to allow for a less “academic” reading experience. To someone so programmed in APA, this was a bit of a challenge.)

Below are the “5 Key Assumptions of Privilege in Online Education” that I uncovered in my reflection on the topic. If you want to know more about them in detail, or how these issues could be addressed, please download the full paper here: “Uncovering Privilege in Online Education: Applying McIntosh’s Lens”.  It is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0, so you may freely share it and use it under those provisions.

The 5 Key Assumptions of Privilege in Online Education

• Assumption 1: Everyone Has Internet Access.
• Assumption 2: Public Schools Level the Playing Field for Online Education.
• Assumption 3: Online Courses (Like MOOCs) Democratize Education, Especially in Post-Secondary Education.
• Assumption 4: Online Education is Accessible for Everyone.
• Assumption 5: You’re Free from Discrimination in Online Education.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the topic.

Sexting & A Safety Agreement for Families

After running a recent workshop on privacy legislation and educators, I was approached by an attendee. The person was currently going through a divorce, was just starting her teaching career and concerned about some racy photos she made and shared with her husband. They were now divorcing. She was wondering if she should be concerned about those photos. My response started with, “It would have been simpler if you hadn’t shared those photos…” (My advice continued, but that’s for another post.)

 

Sexting is risky business, there’s no denying it. We need to discuss the risks with our children as soon as they are ready, and have a plan in place to help and support them if they get in trouble. This post is provided as a tool to help families understand the issues and perhaps enter into an agreement (document template provided at end) with their children to lend support should it ever be necessary.

Sexting & The Issues

Sexting is the practice (even if it’s just one time) of sharing intimate, explicit images, videos or messages with one or more others. The practice of sexting between romantic partners or as a means to flirt and attract romantic partners has been on the rise—especially among older teens.

Often people share sexts under the assumption that the person(s) receiving the sexts will keep them private. When relationships breakdown, one of the parties may break that assumption of trust and share that ‘private’ sext with others. In fact, the top 3 justifications 18-54 year olds gave for non-consensual sharing of personal data were:

• a partner lied (45%)
• a partner cheated (41%)
• a partner broke up with them (27%).¹

The same data showed that 10% of ex-partners threatened to release intimate photos of their partner online and of those, 60% followed through and shared them. ¹

But it’s not always relationship breakdowns that cause sexts to be made more public: loss of personal devices holding sensitive information like sexts (e.g. cellphones, tablets, computers) can leave parties vulnerable—especially when said devices have little to no password protection. (TIP: Use strong passwords- See http://www.howtogeek.com/195430/how-to-create-a-strong-password-and-remember-it/ ). Some people share their passwords—to their phones, or online accounts—and later find out someone breached that trust and shared content (like sexts) they wanted kept private. (TIP: Don’t share passwords guarding personal information—your devices or accounts. My one exception: my kids share their passwords with me.) Then there’s always the risk of a hacker revealing content—especially if any of the parties involved store their sexts online or in the cloud (E.g. In 2014, a hacker breached Apple’s iCloud and publicly posted private nude photos of female celebrities).

The risk of sexts:

• They are permanent digital records of intimate/explicit things;
• They are easily copied & distributed;
• They could be shared without your consent;
• They could be shared with unforeseen people: friends, family, future/ current employers, the world;
• They could be shared in ways you never intended (like posted publicly online).

While sexting may be done consensually, age differences between the participants may make the practice a legal concern–this varies by country & legal jurisdiction (e.g. child pornography). Another concern is that social and peer pressure can be used to extort sexts from otherwise uncomfortable or unwilling participants. Englander (2012) writes that among 18 year olds, “Indisputably, the most important motivation for sexting…was pressure and coercion”. ² The two main reasons for sexting were:

• “because a date or boyfriend/girlfriend wanted the picture (66%)”
• to attract someone you’re interested in (65%). ²

Youth are still discovering what constitutes a respectful romantic relationship. Sometimes the partners requesting the sext through pressuring and coercion may be unaware that they are crossing a line toward sexual harassment. In the case of youth and young adults who choose to sext, they may not be fully aware of the permanence of the content in the sext, how readily it can be distributed, and the potential impacts if shared.

Youth and young adults aren’t necessarily thinking about their future careers when they sext. Sexts made public can affect your employment—future or continuing—in trust professions like teaching. In British Columbia, you need look no farther than the Shewan Decision (1987)³ to understand the ramifications of how sexts in the wrong hands, or made public could affect your job. Other examples of trust professions where sexts-made-more-public could be an issue: counseling, law, law enforcement, medicine, politics, etc. Members of these professions are held to higher standards than the general public—particularly teachers who are seen to influence the development of children and youth.

Youth Reluctance Reporting Problems

Unfortunately, youth are reluctant to report problems that arise from sexting—especially to parents/caregivers. They are concerned that:

• Someone will “judge” them for sexting.
• Someone (parents/caregivers) will take away their devices or technology.

A Sexting Safety Agreement (V 1.0)

To support families in navigating risks associated with sexting and to encourage youth to report problems to caregivers, I’ve drafted a Sexting Safety Agreement (V 1.0)  along the lines of the M.A.D.D.’s Contract for Life (an agreement between caregivers and youth to manage the risks of impaired driving). This is one of the first documents I’ve released under Creative Commons licensing: BY-NC-SA (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike).

 

Footnotes

1. McAfee, 2013, Lovers beware: Scorned exes may share intimate data and images, http://www.mcafee.com/us/about/news/2013/q1/20130204-01.aspx.
2. Englander, E.K. (2012) Low risk associated with most Teenage Sexting: A Study of 617 18-Year-Olds, Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Centre, Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater, MA. Available at: http://webhosbridgew.edu/marc/SEXTING%20AND%20COERCION%20report.pdf
3. In the late 1980’s, a nude photo of a teacher in the Abbotsford School district was submitted by her husband (also a teacher) and published in a magazine as part of an erotic photography competition. The teachers were disciplined by the Board and it lead to a series of court cases. Ultimately in the BC Court of Appeals, Shewan v. Board of School Trustees of School District #34 (Abbotsford), 1987 159, the court stated: “The behaviour of the teacher must satisfy the expectations which the British Columbia community holds for the educational system. Teachers must maintain the confidence and respect of their superiors, their peers, and in particular, the students, and those who send their children to our public schools. Teachers must not only be competent, but they are expected to lead by example. Any loss of confidence or respect will impair the system, and have an adverse effect upon those who participate in or rely upon it. That is why a teacher must maintain a standard of behaviour which most other citizens need not observe because they do not have such public responsibilities to fulfil.”(page 6; http://caselaw.canada.globe24h.com/0/0/british-columbia/court-of-appeal/1987/12/21/shewan-v-board-of-school-trustees-of-school-district-34-abbotsford-1987-159-bc-ca.shtml)

There’s Regulations & Then There’s Best Practices

Image adapted from niekverlaan, 2014, lamp-432247_640.jpg, CC0, https://pixabay.com/en/users/niekverlaan-80788/

(BTW, the ex-high school English teacher in me is making me say: I know, strictly speaking that title is not grammatically correct, but it sounded better. 🙂 )

In this blog, I’ve previously delved (in some detail here) into the nature of BC educators’ compliance (or lack thereof) with BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA, or as some people may remember it, FOIPPA) . I have also mentioned that practically speaking, I don’t think we’ll reach “full compliance” on the Compliance Continuum due to the rate of technological change and our ability to keep pace (access to resources, time, and professional development aside, though clearly important factors 😦 ). What I haven’t really differentiated between is what might be considered “strict compliance” (following the letter of the law) and best practices from an educational perspective with regard to privacy legislation and the use of web-based tools by BC educators. I believe technology savvy educators should reach higher than strict compliance to address students’ & educators’ best interests. In honour of Safer Internet Day 2016’s (2/9/16) theme, “Play Your Part For a Better Internet”, I’m going to share some personal examples of this difference. It’s my way to ‘get involved, inspire, and empower’. I encourage you to share something in honour this year’s Safer Internet Day theme too!

When working with a school staff or faculty, there is what I’ll call a “strict compliance necessity” to make sure that people know their legal obligations like “knowledge, notice, informed consent” when using cloud computing or social media tools–especially those with data stored or accessed outside Canada, or those where the location of data storage is unknown; however, knowledge of such strict compliance requirements is information without context. In my opinion, de-contextualized knowledge doesn’t stick very well–and prevents people understanding why things are the way they are and what makes the specifics important in a particular context. It’s like learning the formula for the Pythagorean Theorem by heart (i.e. a² + b² =c²) without understanding the context of a right triangle. In fact, during school math, I had difficulty with that entire formula until I finally realized that it dealt strictly with right triangles and always referred to the relationship of 2 sides of a triangle to its hypotenuse: while the sides might change, the hypotenuse never did. (A little math lesson, too? 🙂 ) This is one of the reasons I now like to give some sense of the historical context that ‘grew’ FIPPA, its amendments & regulations when I present the topic to BC educators–not only the global context but also regional, as pertains to our particular province. Ensuring educators have some understanding of the context in which FIPPA legislation was written, has been amended, etc., is a best practice.

(Note: If you’re interested in approaches to privacy legislation, you should be following the current developments in the European Union since the “Safe Harbor Ruling” was struck down in 10/15. If you are following the current EU situation, and are familiar with the BC context, there are clear parallels between  the circumstances under which the EU’s new privacy legislation is unfolding and BC’s current FIPPA laws and regulations; BC was just a bit earlier.)

Now for an in-the-field example of strict compliance necessity vs. best practice with students… In strict compliance with FIPPA and FIPPA Regulations, nowhere does it direct educators to specifically provide students (and their parents/guardians where applicable) with the steps to delete accounts after a class or course–though Section 11 of the FIPPA Regulations speaks to providing “the date on which the consent is effective and, if applicable, the date on which the consent expires” (See BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Regulation, Section 11, http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/155_2012 ). It does, however, fit under the legally interpreted aspects of “knowledge” and “notice” for mitigating risks that are critical to the concept of “informed consent”. It is also a practice I encourage my graduate students to use in my OLTD 506  course (#OLTD506) here at VIU (#VIUEd).  When a course/class using a specific online tool comes to an end, providing support documentation or tutorials that walk students through the deletion of accounts or data–as is reasonably and practically possible–would be a best practice not only in British Columbia, but anywhere. In fact, teaching students how to manage the lifecycle of their accounts and associated services/products over time teaches good digital hygiene necessary for a digitally literate citizenry.

If you’re wondering what such a document might look like, here is an example I’ve drafted for our VIU Faculty of Education: Controlling the Lifecycle of Google Accounts_shared .

NOTE BENE: A ‘how to delete an account or data’ document such as this does not replace  the documentation required for obtaining informed student consent to use tools like Google Accounts & YouTube in a BC school under FIPPA. In our case, consent documentation was provided separately along with activity alternatives for students. Controlling the Lifecycle of Google Accounts_shared is provided to students as a supplement to consent documentation.

This document was designed for use with university students in classes where the use of Google and YouTube was encouraged. If you created a similar document, you would need to tailor your content to

• the specific tool(s) you are using & their processes for deletion/ account closure
• the level of your audience(s) (i.e. for students and caregivers)
• your specific school policies, and/or regional laws/regulations

and the document should include the names & contacts for the relevant individuals who can lend support.

Let me know what you think of this post & shared document. I hope it inspires you to do your own thing to “Play Your Part For a Better Internet” on Safer Internet Day 2016.

If you would like to adapt this form for your own use, just contact me & I’m happy to extend permission.

(If you’re wondering why I don’t use CC licensing here, the research I’ve seen shows that “attribution” is rarely given as requested. You’ll see I gave attribution above to the CC0 image I used even though it wasn’t strictly necessary; it’s a thanks to the author from me. If you know of research showing the statistics have changed, share it with me and I’ll be happy to revisit my licensing commitments. 🙂 )