Lehre 4.0 | Legal Aspects of E-Learning
While conducting e-learning
From a legal perspective, what needs to be taken into account during the implementation of e-learning? Which aspects have to be considered? What is allowed, what is not?
E-Assessments are carried out at different times and for different purposes. The use of e-assessment procedures for identifying learning problems (without grading points) or for optimising and controlling teaching-learning processes is particularly suitable during learning processes. (see Teaching Service Center of the University of Kassel)
- Participant list (Lists & postings should only be made with matriculation number (under no circumstances with names). For data protection reasons, it is not permitted to create lists/posters that query the student number AND name.)
- In the case of recording (sound, video, image), refer to this fact with the reference that participants may be present on the recordings.
- Possibility for participants to react to this circumstance and therefore not to participate in the event.
- Ask for distribution of email (possibly no private email addresses, but only the official webmail address according to the framework agreement of the educational institution). At the JLU this means that only the JLU e-mail address First name.surname@derpartment.uni-giessen.de assigned by the HRZ should be used.)
- protect access to LMS (Ilias, Stud.IP etc.) with a password (limited circle of participants)
- ensure the protection of personal data
- In case of E-Assessment:
- Admissibility: The chosen form of performance review must be allowed in the examination procedure. Which forms are legally permissible are regulated by the study and examination regulations for their area of validity as well as the general regulations of the university. In order to protect the use of e-assessment in principle, it must be explicitly and officially approved as a form of examination.
- Data protection: Candidates' personal data (including identifying data, exam conduct, test answers and test results) processed during the examination process must be protected against misuse by outsiders and by participants in the process itself. In the context of e-assessment procedures, the personal and personal data of the candidate must be specially protected.
- Assignability: It must be possible at any time to clearly identify the candidate for an (electronic) examination or, conversely, to determine all candidates' examinations.
- Traceability: The examination process and the completion of the examination result must be able to be reconstructed at any time. The e-assessment database in the back-end of a platform not only stores the end result of an e-assessment process, but also documents more details about its structure, content, and history as the process progresses. In this way, even after the e-assessment procedure, a transcript of the examination case can be dynamically generated at any time by means of a database query.
- Integrity: The immutability, integrity and completeness of the examination data sets or examination documents must be ensured. Protection against manipulation and loss of data and documents must be guaranteed.
- Equal treatment: The conditions of the examination procedure should be the same for all candidates (principle of equal opportunity, article 3, Grungesetz). "Different PC skills are unavoidable and do not affect the principle of equal opportunities". Conversely, if a candidate is unable to attend an E-Assessment procedure due to a disability, an equivalent electronic or traditional exam will be taken for the candidate.
- Equivalence: Regardless of whether they are identical or different from each other, all exam cases of an examination procedure must be equivalent in terms of content and difficulty.
- Contesting protection: There must be no formal and technical deficiencies in the examination procedure that make a legal contestation of test results promising. Pay attention here to shortcomings of technology and organization.
- Deception protection: The possibilities for manipulating the examination procedure by candidates for the purpose of personal benefit should be minimized by means of suitable organizational and technical measures. In the case of e-assessment procedures, this includes, for example, that all software applications apart from the e-assessment system and possibly even browser access must be blocked.
- Ensure that the organizational framework (such as technical infrastructure, hardware equipment, server capacities) is given for the assessment process, ie:
- Provision of the e-assessment technique
- Review of E-Assessment Technique before each pass
- Creation, configuration and testing of e-assessment activities
- Technical support to e-Assessment participants during the e-Assessment
- Shutdown, possibly even degradation of the e-assessment technique after the e-assessment activity
- For semester-related assessments (eg ePortfolio) it must be ensured that all students have access to the various end devices (notebook, PC, smartphone, tablet PC, etc.), access authorizations to the learning management systems and one Internet connection can be assumed. (cf. Handke/ Schäfer: 2012)