Author: Chelsea Hegner

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Event: University:Future Festival – Open for discussion

Where is higher education headed in these times? Where are futures emerging that are already groundbreaking for us today? How is higher education re-imagining itself on the path to the “blended university”? These and other questions will be addressed by the University:Future Festival 2021 from November 2 – 4, 2021 under the motto “Open for Discussion”, the largest event of its kind in the German-speaking world. Over three days, impulses will be given and future topics such as hybrid learning, diversity, artificial intelligence and future skills will be discussed. Of course, OESA will also be there!

The Festival

The University:Future Festival is organized by the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (HFD) in partnership with the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre (StIL). It is aimed at everyone who is engaged with the present and future of academic education: Teachers, students, university management and staff; activists and representatives from civil society, politics and administration; artists and scientists; EdTech founders and journalists. The festival with over 350 speakers and hundreds of program points will take place online in English and German; participation is free of charge.

Our program: OPEN as a standard

On November 02, we’ll talk about openness as an overall concept, openness as the fundamental driver of all social practices, and open source software as a global movement that spans from knowledge and education to urban gardening.

Learn more about the importance of Open Data, Open Knowledge, Open Education, Open Access and Co. for society, education and our future:

02.11.2021 17:30 Lightning Talk: the future is OPEN!

Program, tickets and more information: https://festival.hfd.digital/en/

Access

On the event platform of the festival, the Lightning Talk can still be viewed free of charge for a while afterwards.

We have also provided the most important content and findings of our talk on the future-proof concept “OPEN” for you to read in the next article.

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Situation and development of school clouds in Germany

The corona-induced homeschooling or distance learning has put learning with digital media in the focus of public discussion and made clear differences in the use of school clouds in Germany visible. The Institute for Information Management at the University of Bremen (ifib) was therefore commissioned by the Telekom Foundation to conduct a systemic inventory of school learning platforms and IT strategies in all German states and five German municipalities. The recently published study addresses the questions:

  • What is in the various learning platforms that the federal states and also some municipalities offer their schools?
  • How are the systems organized technically?
  • Who provides pedagogical and technical support?
  • How much do these solutions differ from one another?

In addition to an overview of the solutions used, the study also provides a model that systematizes all parts of a learning management system (LMS) and shows what opportunities the respective learning platforms offer students, how the operation of the systems is organized, and who provides pedagogical and technical support. Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg and Saxony showed a broad set-up of digital media for teaching. In other states, however, different solutions exist side by side in some cases.

The study’s final finding:

There will probably not be a nationwide uniform school cloud solution in Germany – and it is not necessary as long as there are common standards and functioning interfaces for all existing learning management systems in the future.

The benefits of LMSs should have been clear at the latest since the school closures, even though Germany was very late in getting involved with learning platforms by international standards. As true all-rounders, school clouds or learning management systems support teaching and learning processes, simplify organizational processes, and provide a technical basis for communication between teachers, learners, parents, and the school through supplementary offerings from external providers (e.g., by means of video conferencing systems or messenger services).

We at OESA e.V. recommend the following, open source-based systems:

  1. Moodle
  2. ILIAS (developed at the University of Cologne)
  3. and StudIP.

All three are hosted on the school’s own server, are therefore DSGVO-compliant, free of charge and free of advertising, and make it possible to control access rights for the various instances through closed user groups. However, setting up learning environments is highly dependent on the IT infrastructure available in each case; both Moodle and Ilias must be set up and hosted as closed systems on their own servers. Those looking for lower-threshold offerings will have to reckon with a loss of functionality. However, in order to establish open source systems, such as Moodle, in the school context in a long-term, sustainable and future-proof manner, much greater investment in the know-how of the institutions and the competencies of the people is required in addition to the provision of material resources for IT equipment. We have compiled further information on LMS and their didactically meaningful use here.


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Do we need alternatives to Padlet?

Recently, Padlet was classified as problematic in terms of data protection by the LDA Brandenburg. The educational server Berlin-Brandenburg now also advises against the use of Padlet. Since then, the use of Padlet has been discontinued at many schools in Germany, which is regretted by many teachers who have increasingly used digital tools for teaching since the beginning of the Corona pandemic and homeschooling and are enthusiastic about the intuitive and playful design as well as the many possibilities Padlet offers.

The problem with the interactive pinboard tool: data protection.

Padlet is not GDPR-compliant. The platform originates from the United States, where the General Data Protection Regulation does not apply. Previously, use of the platform in a school context ran under the “Privacy Shield,” under which U.S. providers had to comply with European data protection regulations. This was overturned and since July 2020, no personal data may be transferred to the United States. However, Padlet shares data with third-party providers, such as Google, when it is used. The exact data content is largely unknown, but Padlet can store and process personal data such as shared content, IP addresses or movement profiles by the company or third-party providers. Thus, the risk outweighs the benefit for data protectionists.

But there is also a way to use Padlet without data protection problems. Padlet can also be used without an account. Instead of registering, you can also log in via a guest account to avoid creating your own profile. Students can also access Padlet through a link provided by their teachers. If Padlet is used at school on school devices without the students logging in to other services, their usage behavior remains anonymous as long as no personal data is entered into Padlet. If Padlet is used with a school end device via a private Internet connection, it is not clear what data is collected by the platform operator. However, as soon as the platform is used via private end devices, the provider can store personalized data that can be used to identify the user.

Padlet can therefore only be used on school devices without hesitation. However, if you want or have to avoid using Padlet, you can take a look at the following alternatives or browse through our Toolbox yourself:

1. Pinnit is a data-saving digital pinboard that has many features that Padlet also offers. Collaborative work can be done here and, for example, posts or ideas can be collected. In addition, published contributions can be commented and rated. Only the most necessary data is stored on a German server during use. Furthermore, no personalizing registration is necessary for use and IP addresses are pseudonymized.

2. Taskcards is a German alternative to Padlet. The platform is also DSGVO-compliant and its servers are located exclusively in Germany. Registration is also possible via a guest account. The design and the user interface are very similar to the American model. Many features that are available on Padlet are also offered by Taskcards. Private pinboards can be created here, which can also be published if required. It works with texts, images, links and various file attachments.

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Open Source Messengers: Alternatives to WhatsApp

Digital communication has become indispensable. Professional and private life is shared via messenger and enables an exchange regardless of location. How individual messengers handle the messages, images, audio and files sent is therefore a fundamental question that every user should address. 

This is not the first time that the social messenger service WhatsApp has come under criticism for its data protection policy. At the latest with the acquisition by Facebook, concerns about data security have repeatedly become part of the public debate.

As of May 15, new data protection rules will come into effect at Whatsapp in Germany, which will allow WhatsApp to share the data of its users with Facebook and pass it on to third parties outside the EU.

We are currently reading a lot about Telegram as an alternative. Since messages can be sent to several thousand people at the same time, the Dubai-based messenger has become the preferred communication channel for conspiracy theorists. It is often declared as open source, but only the client is open and the data is stored on unknown servers; the messages are not end-to-end encrypted.

So the question to leave Whatsapp remains open. In the following, we therefore present five open-source alternatives to WhatsApp that take the privacy of their users more seriously:

1. Movim

Movim is based on XMPP, the open standard for messaging. Web-based and decentralized, it can communicate with other applications via XMPP. In addition to the typical messenger functions, such as chats, video chats, editing options and night mode, Movim also offers the options of screen sharing, browsing hashtags, automatically saving message drafts or publishing articles.

2. Session

Like WhatsApp, Session offers a chat function, group chats, voice messages, and end-to-end encryption of chats. Unlike WhatsApp, however, no phone number is needed to use it. Session is blockchain-based and decentralized.

3. Element

Similar to Session, Element does not require a phone number for the common messenger functions. In addition to chat, video chat and telephony, Element also offers the option of joining private or public groups. Element operates decentralized via matrix network.

4. Threema

No phone number is needed to use Threema either. Telephony, video chats, and chats that can be provided with polls are end-to-end encrypted. Likewise, groups can be created and managed. The app comes from Switzerland, which is known for its excellent data protection.

5. Signal

Signal is particularly impressive due to its user-friendliness. The app offers the usual messenger functions (chats, group chats, video chats, telephony), which are all end-to-end encrypted, and does not collect any data except for the phone number.

So there are some alternatives to WhatsApp that not only offer better data protection, but are also openly available. The decision between switching completely or using several messengers depends on the individual situation. But the argument that you can no longer reach all your contacts without WhatsApp will become invalid as soon as enough people use open alternatives. So get active and switch to open source!

You can find all information in a tabular overview in our Toolbox – just search for “messenger”..