Import / Export - Role based permission about h HOT 4 OPEN

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee is concerned about student privacy and the ability for students to export annotations from a course. They are hoping for the ability to import/export to be role based so they can turn off student export of annotations.

from h.

I will note that on a purely technical level, the export feature is only exporting data that has already been downloaded to the user's browser for display. A moderately savvy user can always export the data from the browser's developer tools.

Putting aside that limitation, we could offer an option to restrict export to only the current user. That way a student would at least be able to always get their own notes out of the system. This would get in the way if the person is trying to export work they have done collaboratively with other students though.

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I'd like to add that even without technical expertise students could just screenshot the text of others, making restricting their exports moot.

More importantly, just as regular annotations have the most value in the context of the text on the page, social annotations have the most value in the context of the discussion. My understanding of my own annotations may require viewing the other annotations in the document for understanding.

Finally, one point I've made with admins that they seems to agree with (perhaps I've just been lucky to talk with the right admins) is that, in the context of an actual class discussion, no one's stopping students from writing down what other people say. We're not policing the taking of discussion notes in that context, and we shouldn't be policing the taking of notes in other contexts.

from h.

A moderately savvy user can always export the data from the browser's developer tools.
I'd like to add that even without technical expertise students could just screenshot the text of others, making restricting their exports moot.

As you guys might imagine we've made those points before. :)
Unfortunately the technical reality does not necessarily jibe w/ the institutional perception, which is often quite unsophisticated in these areas.

This is just a placeholder. We can decide how/whether we want to prioritize.

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