Education has followed a traditional model of in-classroom learning. However, it is increasingly conducted online, moving educators and learners into virtual classrooms and their information into more databases. Online education service providers who want to be competitive in this climate will need to ensure the systems they have in place are capable of protecting their users’ privacy — but this might not be feasible in their current operational state.
As data security breaches have occurred in the education sector, this has become a major concern for institutions. Without appropriate measures in place, the current conditions could make for a perfect storm of more damaging privacy breaches.
Key points
- Trusted Analytics: a world-first data privacy platform for education
- Developed in a consortium of Australia’s leading EdTech practitioners
- Focuses on data privacy, risk assessment, learning analytics, and education & outreach
In response to this, senior executives across the Australian EdTech sector partnered to create Trusted Analytics: a collaborative research project that aims to make the education sector (including EdTech) a leader in data privacy, and enhance the quality and potential of online learning with privacy-preserving analytics.
The team includes data privacy, security, and education practitioners. Experts from Practera, Data61, Navitas, UniSA, Cybermerc, and EduGrowth make up this consortium.
Data Privacy
Risk Assessment
Learning Analytics
Education and Outreach
“Our project is developing a data privacy management solution which will lift maturity and improve privacy protection for EdTech and education providers, enabling them to share and make better use of their data while remaining legally compliant and reducing their overall risk.” – Ruth Marshall, Director of R&D and Data Integrity at Practera; Team Member at Trusted Analytics
The vision for this project is to develop a world-first platform for the education industry that aims to measure and reduce the privacy risks. The product will be for education providers to preserve the privacy of student data records, which will enable education companies to maximise the value of their student datasets.
This EdTech solution will both optimise educational institutions’ relationships with their students, as well as strengthen their partnerships with EdTech companies to ensure all data shared and used is protected and analysed appropriately.
Interested in getting involved? At the bottom of the Trusted Analytics website, you can submit some information about you and your organisation. They will send you further details about membership and collaboration options.
This project is supported by the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (AusIndustry) CRC-P program.