As the semester comes to a close, I wanted to thank you all for your hard work transitioning our instruction and operations to a remote environment. It has come up that during this quick transition to remote operations, some university instruction and work has been done using 3rd party technologies not included in the campus toolset. It may be convenient to use platforms with which we are familiar or that we know students use socially. However, personal technology choices are different than requiring use of a platform for university business. We don’t want to inadvertently compromise university systems, violate federal laws or expose sensitive data through use of an unvetted 3rd party technology.
University activities, such as instruction and students services, should be restricted to university approved platforms and tools. There are multiple areas of potential risk when unauthorized platforms are used for university business, particularly when used for student interactions. These risks could include exposure of protected student data, compromising student, faculty, staff and university intellectual property, vulnerability of computer data security, inappropriate behavior by outside parties on the platform, FERPA violation, university data breech, accessibility non-compliance and inability to provide user support for the environment.
Technologies such as Discord, Piazza and Twitch are not university vetted and approved. At end of this message you can find a list of resources to identify and select University approved technologies. Any campus activities currently being conducted using unapproved technologies should immediately begin work to transition to an appropriate university approved technology platform. OIT and CETL consultation services can be used to help identify alternative technologies and transition your functional needs.
Thanks for your support in making sure we are using appropriately reviewed technologies for our work! We want to ensure our campus community has a safe and inclusive online experience.
University Approved Technologies
Sincerely,
Gregg Camfield
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
