The standard method of addressing these situations is to create and disseminate an acceptable use policy (AUP) that strives to avoid network misuse, while identifying consequences for breaking the rules of this contract. The goal is to develop and promote AUPs within organizations and institutions that are progressive, responsive to changes in the Internet, while not negatively impacting morale and productivity. The challenge behind these documents and policies is that they often differ in terms of purpose and implementation. Furthermore, the actual impact of these policies may be quite different for each institution across multiple fields. This is further exacerbated as individuals engage in media literacy practices in and out of school environments, and across multiple digital tools, platforms, and spaces. These policies and the expectations and limitations they place Internet usage have an impact on use and acquisition of media literacy. This has implications on educators, researchers, and practitioners as they encounter AUPs in their everyday work.
This post is an abbreviated version of my submission on acceptable use policies for the upcoming International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy. Please feel free to review and comment on the submitted version here.
What is an acceptable use policy?
Generally, an acceptable use policy (AUP) is defined as a set of “strategies that allow school districts to notify technology users of expected behavior and set forth the consequences of misuse” (Conn, 2002, p. 91). In application, there is much more at stake in the implementation of AUPs. Wikipedia defines an AUP as a set of rules applied by the owner, creator, or administrator of a network, website, or service. This AUP is sometimes identified as an acceptable usage policy, or a fair use policy. These policies are meant to restrict the ways in which the network, website, or system may be used and establish guidelines for usage. AUPs are documents written for organizations (e.g., corporations, businesses, universities, schools, libraries, internet service providers, website owners).
AUPs are similar to the terms of service (ToS), terms of use (ToU), or End-user License Agreement (EULA) documents that technology companies and developers include with their products or services. There are slight differences between these documents (i.e., ToS, ToU, EULA) and AUPs. AUPs cover large computing resources,such as websites or networks. AUPs emphasize etiquette and respect for fellow users (presumably not applicable to single-user programs or other computer services). One key difference is that ToS and ToU usually detail how they will interact with the user, and provide little guidance as to how to use the product or service.
The role of AUPs in and out of educational settings
Educators, researchers, and practitioners face many challenges as they interact with AUPs in their own work, and as they protect and prepare students for current and future environments. AUPs may dictate usage of apps, networks, and Internet access at work, home of the library for individuals. To some extent, our everyday interactions in a web and media literacy environment are dictated by a blanket of documents and agreements constructed from AUPs as well as other ToS or ToU. Educators, researchers, and practitioners not only have to be aware of their own rights and privileges under these documents, but also educate and advocate for students as they use these tools and services.
Within educational contexts, AUPs are evidence of a policy that outlines how a school, district, or institution expects its members to behave in regards to the usage of technology. The usage of technology is typically written broadly and includes hardware, information systems or databases, as well as the Internet, and associated networking capabilities. AUPs in education typically identify acceptable and unacceptable behaviors in their documents. Unacceptable behaviors may include issues of plagiarism, copyright violations, piracy, visitation of inappropriate materials and website.
Is your AUP acceptable?
Development of an AUP should begin with an understanding of the culture and philosophy of the service and the group that will utilize the networks, websites, or services. Existing AUPs and templates can be identified from a number of sources online, however these should only be used as a starting point for discussion. Osborne (2011) suggests that groups create a social media policy to guide discussion and come to consensus about appropriate conduct online. This discussion, and subsequent revisions about the social media guidelines should include stakeholders that will need to agree to, and enforce these policies (Taylor, Whang, & Grimes, 2010). In a school district or building, this may include school administrators, parents, and students.
The AUP, or documents related to expected online behaviors (e.g., social media policies) should be easy to comprehend, detailed, and focus on the complexities required to be web and media literate (Taylor, Whang, & Tettegah, 2006). The development of an AUP should also take into account existing policies that dictate expected behaviors and literacy practices (Russo, 2013). As an example, if there are already policies in place that dictate appropriate discourse and speech, perhaps it is not necessary to duplicate these policies in a new document. Many school districts also curtail their AUP as they contemplate the need for a new statement that indicates how they comply with existing policies (e.g., bullying), state or national telecommunication rules and regulations, as well as fair use and other intellectual property laws (Brooks-Young, 2010; Marwick, Murgia-Diaz, & Palfrey, 2010; Ahrens, 2012).
Finally, the language of the AUP should be easy to read and understand by not only the parties agreeing to the terms, but also the groups enforcing the document. AUPs, ToS, ToU, and EULA documents are often too long, too complex, and not transparent (Fiesler, Lampe, & Bruckman, 2016). The end result is that the document is not easy to read, understand, or enforce. Media and web literacy instruction should include guidance not only for the development of AUPs, but also the comprehension of these documents. More transparency is needed for these documents (i.e., AUPs, ToS, ToU, EULA) to ensure that they are written in a manner that is easy to understand and follow.
Wrapping up
Digital networks, websites, and services are a necessary component of the toolset required to build and utilize digital and media literacies. Appropriate policies, procedures, and guidelines are necessary to protect the developers and administrators of these texts and tools, as well as the users of these spaces. These documents often fail to provide users with the freedom needed to expand their skills, while still creating safe and appropriate boundaries for use of the Internet and all it has to offer. To prepare individuals to be digitally savvy, media literate citizens, there is a need for guideline guidelines, discussions, and agreed upon policies that emphasize successful practice and define the suitable use of the technology and tools being used.
Also published on Medium.
Also on:
This Article was mentioned on brid-gy.appspot.com
My Month of June
What a month. I discovered that I was not doing the job I thought I was doing, subsequently I got a name change. Now I am an eLearn Subject Matter Expert. Wondering if such surprises are part and parcel of an agile world?
In regards to the family, if it wasn’t one daughter then it was the other this month. Our youngest had the flu for a week, then our eldest stood on glass and had a visit to emergency. All good now, was just a bit hectic for a while. Maybe that is life?
In relation to my writing, thinking and learning, here was my month in posts:
Art and Science of Teaching and Music – With the passing of Chris Cornell, I reflected on covering music compared with a faithful interpretation. This was associated with the idea of best practice
REVIEW: The Global Education Race – A review of Sam Sellar, Greg Thompson and David Rutkowski book, The Global Education Race, Taking the Measure of PISA and International Testing.
Reflections from #CoachEd2017 – A Reflection on the 5th National Coaching Conference for Educators held in Melbourne and the three ideas I was left with.
A Comprehensive Guide to YouTube – A dive into watching, curating and creating content with YouTube.
Developing Safer (Digital) Schools – A summary of a day spent with eSmart exploring safer schools. I also documented a number of my own resources collected over time.
Starting the Learning Before the Conference – I asked the question, rather than waiting for people to walk into the room, what if we seek feedback from participants before they arrive at professional development sessions?
The Risk of Hospitality – My response to the #Digciz discussion around hospitality, risk and vulnerability relating to online spaces. The post explored ideas of context, imaginary lines, tribes and mapping.
Questions for Cal – After watching Cal Newport’s TED Talk on quitting social media, I was left reflecting on three questions: what is social media, what is work and how do I differentiate the changes in my mind?
Daily Habits – Having spoken about the process involved in learning and the tools I depend upon, I have never thought about the daily activities which help me as a learner.
Here then are some of the thoughts that have also left me thinking …
Learning and Teaching
“Catch the Flipgrid Fever” by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
Catch the Flipgrid fever! 15+ ways to use Flipgrid in your class – Kayla Moura provides an introduction to Flipgrid, an application for visual feedback. To support this, she lists some potential uses, such as a debate, an exit ticket or a book report. In some ways it reminds me of Verso and the way that users can share and respond in a centrally managed space. The main difference is that Flipgrid is built around video.
Teaching and Learning Research Summaries: A collection for easy access – Tom Sherrington collects together a range of research-based resources to provoke deeper thinking around learning and teaching. This should not be considered the essential list, but rather a place to start a conversation about research. A need that Linda Graham wrote about recently.
Self-Editing Tools for Student Writing in Google Docs – Eric Curts looks at four areas of self-editing tools students can use when writing in Google Docs. He discusses speech-to-text, text-to-speech, grammar checkers and thesaurus tools. This year I have dabbled with ProWritingAid, a paid Google Docs addon that allows you to gain feedback within Gsuite. I discovered this via Vicki Davis’ blog. Other than that, I like the Grammarly add-on too. Neither replace the need of the human to understand the decisions being made.
Crash Course Computer Science – Crash Course recently started a new series unpacking the history of computers hosted by Carrie Anne Philbin from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Like the Contrafabulists podcast exploration of Underground Histories, Bret Victor’s History of Programming, John O’Brien’s paleofuture and Audrey Watters’ History of the Pedometer, Philbin’s explorations provides a context for the choices made associated with technology that many of us have come to take for granted today. This is not another ‘How to Code’ series.
Instagram for Teachers – Tony Vincent explains how Instagram can be used in education. This post provides a range of examples and some considerations in regards to managing your account. Owned by Facebook, I am not sure where this all sits with Doug Belshaw’s assertion that friends don’t let other friends Facebook? As a platform, Instagram seems to be an alternative for some to a blog?
Going Public and Going Pro: The Power of Portfolios, Publishing & Personal Branding – Michael Niehoff makes the case for the public element associated PBL being fostered through a personal portfolio. In addition to having a ‘canonical url‘ as Jon Udell would put it, Niehoff discusses the need to continually create content and maintain our own brand. This is a topic that Ian O’Byrne, Bill Ferriter and Bob Schuetz have touched upon elsewhere.
Edtech
“A Sociology of the Smartphone” by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
A Sociology of the Smartphone – Adam Greenfield shares a portion of his new book, Radical Technologies, unpacking smartphones. In this assemblage of parts he looks at what actually makes smartphones work, the changes they have brought to our habits and the impact on our environment. On this matter, Kin Lane documents the valuable bits in a smartphone that everyone wants, Doug Belshaw discusses email and notification literacy, Aral Balkan asks who owns the data, while Mike Caulfield rues the impact smartphones have had on research. Greenfield’s essay also serves as an example of how technology can construct a ‘templated self’. This is timely with the tenth anniversary of the iPhone. In another extract from Greenfield’s book, he reflects on the internet of things.
Twitter’s Misleading User Experience When Reporting Abuse – Bill Fitzgerald highlights the problem with the way that Twitter responds to abuse. Although to the person who has reported the issue the situation would seem resolved, the user is still present to the rest of the Twitter. This in part is a reminder that Twitter is a capitalistic advertising platform, something Audrey Watters and Kin Lane touch upon in a recent episode of Contrafabulists.
Coding for what? Lessons from computing in the curriculum – Speaking to a group of educators in Sweden, Ben Williamson focuses on the rise of computing in the curriculum. He traces some of its origins, as well as some of the cautionary tales and advice, especially the influence of private enterprise. This left me thinking about the Australian education system and the introduction of digital technologies. It too has largely been led by various investments, not-for-profit ventures and private providers. Although there has been a lot of talk about coding, there is little discussion about the critical side. Bill Fitzpatrick and Kris Shaffer’s explanation on how to spot a bot is a good start.
Neither Locked Out Nor Locked In – Continuing on from the conversation about Domain of One’s Own, Martha Burtis goes beyond conformity in her explorations of a Domain of One’s Own in her keynote for #Domains17. One of the first steps is to find your own metaphor for the web. Will Richardson and Bruce Dixon provide a useful follow-up discussion on the Modern Learners podcast. There were some other great posts from Domains17, including Jesse Stommel and Sean Michael Morris on the need for pedagogical approaches that help Domain of One’s Own make the LMS irrelevant, Meredith Fierro on the web as a shipping container, Tom Woodward on running a multisite like a boss, Adam Croom on starting a new conversation and Amy Collier on going beyond the notion of residency to describe ideas of kindred spirits.
How to install Linux on a Chromebook (and why you should) – J.M. Porup explains how to use Crouton and Gallium OS to turn Chromebooks into Linux laptops. Both options offer the ability to dual-boot, but come at a cost, as working in developer mode has the potential to open users up to various vulnerabilities. Mark O’Meara discussed this a few years ago, however his approach was to boot from a USB. Running Linux is an interesting idea and something that Dai Barnes and Doug Belshaw have discussed quite a bit lately on the TIDE Podcast.
iOS Losing Steam To Chrome In The Classroom? Kahoot Releases First EdTrends Report – The team at Nibletz provide a summary of a new report from Kahoot looking at Edtech. What interests me about this is the ability for an application like Kahoot to grab such an insightful snapshot of habits and behaviours, but more interesting is what this says about Kahoot. It leaves me wondering if the application is in fact a front for something else? Just as Amazon started with books and Uber with transportation, is Kahoot starting with quizzes? Both this report and Snapchat’s addition of maps are reminders of the data which we hand over each and every minute. Kin Lane and Audrey Watters’ discuss this in light of monopolies on the Contrafabulist Podcast.
What You Need to Know About “Acceptable Use Policies” – Ian O’Byrne discusses the role of an user policy and what makes them acceptable. For Tom Murray and Eric Sheninger, it is about being responsible and setting in place the appropriate behaviours. Coming from the perspective of terms and conditions, Bill Fitzgerald suggests searching for particular terms when investigating questions around consent, these include: third party, affiliations, change, update and modify. For the reality is not everyone has the time and resources to unpack applications like TurnItIn or ClassDojo. In the end, the challenge is first and foremostly to have deeper discussions about these topics, such as the one facilitated by the #digciz group.
Storytelling and Reflection
“Tweeting and blogging: Selfish, self-serving indulgences?” by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
Tweeting and blogging: Selfish, self-serving indulgences? – Responding to Clare Narayanan and her critique of the guru teachers who spend their time at Teachmeets and on Twitter, Deb Netolicky discusses finding balance between self care, family time and service to the profession. This is a reminder that being online is a choice with consequences. Something Claire Amos touches upon. Benjamin Doxtdater also suggests, maybe our primary focus should be on self-care and private journals.
4 Critical Questions To Ask When Attending Education Research Conferences – Charlotte Pezaro (and Marten Koomen) unpack four questions to ask when attending research conferences. Many of these questions go beyond ‘research’ conferences and can be applied to a lot of PL, such as who is paying and what is put forwards as working. In part, this touches on some of the points Dan Haesler made in his post on disclosure, as well as the rise of the thought leader in society (rather than the public intellectual as Gramsci described).
Ep 10: ILEs, VCE and the Flow state – Steve Brophy and Dean Pearman discuss the challenges of innovation, particularly in the senior years. They suggest that with the culture of results, students have become conditioned into memorising content. Greg Miller has written a lot about giving pride of place to soft skills and capabilities, while Bianca Hewes has explained how PBL is possible in the final years. There are many who say that the senior assessment will not change until University changes. CCourses provided a clear vision in this area.
Conditions for Community – Julian Stodd reflects on the conditions required for communities to prosper. He touches on such attributes as social capital, rules, consequences, social leadership, trust, fluidity of role and shared values. As always, Stodd uses a visual as a means of representing this thinking. I think that the only thing missing, that I have touched upon elsewhere, is a compelling case for being there. Associated with online communities, Jenny Mackness recently published her PhD looking into MOOCs and online learning environments.
4 keys that predict which education idea will be more than just a fad & Is “making” in education a fad or a lasting change? – In these two posts, Sylvia Martinez looks at the history of sticky ideas and makes a prediction about the place of makerspaces in the future. Building on the work of Schnieder, Martinez identifies four attributes that are important to the analysis: perceived significance, philosophical compatibility, occupational realism and transportability. This is an interesting read alongside Audrey Watters’ presentation on robots raising children at New Horizons Media.
Before and After Ok Computer – With the twentieth anniversary of Ok Computer, Charles Aaron provides an audio guide to the album’s 12 songs, plus what came before, and what came after. It is an interesting exercise to place the album in a context. I remember seeing Radiohead in concert a few years ago, one of the best concerts I have ever been to. In other anniversaries, it was recently the 50th anniversary Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band too.
FOCUS ON … Publishing Your Own Book
“An Unreasonable Man writes his Damn Book’“ by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
In a recent blog post, Steve Brophy wrote about moving from dreaming of writing a book to having enough content to do so. The question though is what is the process. Here then are some of the posts and examples that I collected together on the subject:
How To Structure and Write a Self-published E-book – Nik Peachey explains how to get on with the task of writing and structuring a book.
Publishing a Commercial Book with Creative Commons – Andrés Guadamuz on negotiating a Creative Commons licence when working with a publisher.
One year on: The Really Useful #EdTechBook – David Hopkins collects his thoughts on publishing a collaborative text.
Book Review: “APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur – How to Publish a Book” – David Hopkins reviews a book associated with self publishing.
An Unreasonable Man writes his Damn Book – Doug Belshaw shares a range of resources, including several platforms to support publishing.
Write and Sell Your Dawn Book – Paul Jarvis shares a step-by-step guide for writing a book.
Be a Writer – Part One, Two, Three and Four – Sue Crowley unpacks a number of challenges associated with being a writer, including home truths, audiences, publishing and copyright.
My ebook, ‘The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies’ is now pay-what-you-want (including nothing!) – Doug Belshaw shares some reflections on publishing, including. his openbeta process
The Curse of the Monsters of Education Technology – An example of the way in which Audrey Watters publishes her books across a number of platforms.
The Trust Sketchbook: a reflective space to explore – An example of a book being published via a Kickstarter campaign.
READ WRITE RESPOND #018
So that is June for me, how about you? As always, interested to hear.
Also, feel free to forward this on to others if you found anything of interest or maybe you want to subscribe?
Cover image: “My room” by justlego1O1 https://flickr.com/photos/103739566@N06/34954439821 is licensed under CC BY-SA