Implications of GDPR

km79

Having just read a post on Voices for Teachers I decided to open a thread here for discussion. People can add to it as they return to school .
According to some posts on VFT some schools will no longer allow student names in roll books/roll books must be locked away on premises when not being used, no tests/copies with student names are allowed leave school premises , eportal/vsware can only be accessed on school premises, majority of student info to be stored electronically including in some cases roll call (who pays for these devices ?)

Some of this is sensible and will no doubt happen .
Not being able to correct tests at home is unworkable and I've a feeling is hyperbole .......if true will we reach the stage where students are assigned a student ID number and identified by that only? Sad state of affairs if we do...............

I think teachers are wide open tbh due to the nature of our work and we need MUCH more guidance .........

Moody_mona

I agree that we're wide open.

I was using eportal on my home laptop yesterday to check my timetable and class groups and was only thinking to myself that I have access to every child's address, picture and parent's phone number, which is a huge amount of data really.

km79

Moody_mona wrote: »

I agree that we're wide open.

I was using eportal on my home laptop yesterday to check my timetable and class groups and was only thinking to myself that I have access to every child's address, picture and parent's phone number, which is a huge amount of data really.

That is one aspect of E portal that can not be allowed to continue in it's current format

TheDriver

I think vsware is changing so you only see your own students details.
It will always be accessible from home as passwords etc are security. Hence there should be no saved passwords for it on your device.
The over 18 student who won't agree to having their parent involved.
Getting rid of all files once they reach a certain age.

deiseindublin

I was just coming on here to post about this after reading VFT. I wonder will it end up being a lot of hot smoke? I'm working in a big ETB and there has been nothing about it yet, except a fairly nondescript email.

Also, can't see how work will be corrected if it can't be brought home. There aren't enough school hours in the day. I'm involved in QQI so hoping the school will be open with the heat on for all nighters in March and April if it's true!

Mardy Bum

deiseindublin wrote: »

I was just coming on here to post about this after reading VFT. I wonder will it end up being a lot of hot smoke? I'm working in a big ETB and there has been nothing about it yet, except a fairly nondescript email.

Also, can't see how work will be corrected if it can't be brought home. There aren't enough school hours in the day. I'm involved in QQI so hoping the school will be open with the heat on for all nighters in March and April if it's true!

Lots of hot smoke up until some litigious Larry decides he wants a pay day, I assume. That is the way most things work in Ireland.

pandoraj09

Problems will arise with sending Mocks out for correction also. Students' names, school etc written on them , plus maybe other details from the class teacher ie if a student has a spelling and grammar waiver. Anyway, how is this all going to be policed??? Principals standing at the exit of the school each day checking no roll books, copies etc being brought home by teachers????

km79

pandoraj09 wrote: »

Principals standing at the exit of the school each day checking no roll books, copies etc being brought home by teachers????

Assuming that this is even an issue the Principal’s job would be to inform staff only not to actively enforce it
So then if the teacher takes the copies home it’s on them .............
Completely unworkable for teachers of course but GDPR is a once size fits all job it seems

Postgrad10

Had a set of mock papers from a school this year on which the students had put their name ,school name , and home address on the answer booklet! The mock companies will have to remove this option on the booklet but they think they need to fill in everything.

km79

TheDriver wrote: »

It will always be accessible from home as passwords etc are security. Hence there should be no saved passwords for it on your device.
.

So similar to what I said above
The Principal’s job will be to just inform staff of their responsibilities around GDPR

I will no longer be using any personal device to access any sort of school business to protect myself from litigation
If in the future there is a digitization of School business such as roll call etc I expect a device will be provided for this purpose

There are going to be a lot of issues as the full scale of what GDPR means for the teaching profession becomes apparent

pandoraj09

Its not just the students' personal data that should be up for review. While checking to see if my timetable was up on Vs ware earlier today, I noticed that i could view any staff members' timetable. Should that now be kept private?

Postgrad10

pandoraj09 wrote: »

Its not just the students' personal data that should be up for review. While checking to see if my timetable was up on Vs ware earlier today, I noticed that i could view any staff members' timetable. Should that now be kept private?

Well management and office staff still need the timetables to see where students are. It's not giving anything confidential about the teacher away seeing their timetable.

Gaillimh1976

Postgrad10 wrote: »

Well management and office staff still need the timetables to see where students are. It's not giving anything confidential about the teacher away seeing their timetable.

Yes, but do I need to see your timetable or do you need to see mine.


There has to be a valid reason for having the info, office staff have a valid reason, other teachers don't.


Like a lot of things it will be ignored until there is a complaint.

km79

Gaillimh1976 wrote: »

Yes, but do I need to see your timetable or do you need to see mine.


There has to be a valid reason for having the info, office staff have a valid reason, other teachers don't.


Like a lot of things it will be ignored until there is a complaint.

You should not be able to view other teachers timetables

mirrorwall14

Our vsware has been locked down, you can’t see information about students you don’t teach. However timetable access for students is tough going for those in extra curricular, how do I find students? Do I need to go and ask the office each time?

We were allowed do roll books fully onto vsware last year except the morning roll. However there currently no facility for us to record class test results there or behaviour or the million and one other things I kept in my journal

We’re in trouble in terms of electronic devices. No school has enough devices of any kind for staff. No IT departments, no support structures (much to the horror of the Harvey norman sales people lol). I’d guess that at a minimum half our staff haven’t got their personal devices protected and have their vsware passwords saved and accessible on them. We’re all using google drive and i’ll Be the first to admit while I’m very careful with my VSware and laptop passwords etc, I actually haven’t got google drive protected independently and will have to look into that

I know someone in the data protection area and she flagged with me last year that schools were going to be in serious trouble with many of our previous procedures under this legislation

km79

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

Our vsware has been locked down, you can’t see information about students you don’t teach. However timetable access for students is tough going for those in extra curricular, how do I find students? Do I need to go and ask the office each time?

We were allowed do roll books fully onto vsware last year except the morning roll. However there currently no facility for us to record class test results there or behaviour or the million and one other things I kept in my journal

We’re in trouble in terms of electronic devices. No school has enough devices of any kind for staff. No IT departments, no support structures (much to the horror of the Harvey norman sales people lol). I’d guess that at a minimum half our staff haven’t got their personal devices protected and have their vsware passwords saved and accessible on them. We’re all using google drive and i’ll Be the first to admit while I’m very careful with my VSware and laptop passwords etc, I actually haven’t got google drive protected independently and will have to look into that

I know someone in the data protection area and she flagged with me last year that schools were going to be in serious trouble with many of our previous procedures under this legislation

What do you mean by protecting google drive independently?
There is an option to encrypt your google drive which I’m sure is adequate?

happywithlife

http://orthodoxengland.org.uk/obitcs.htm

My take on the whole thing -- obituary of Common Sense

happywithlife

On a serious note it's all ridiculous and unworkable.
Ok so I take roll call on my pc but there's a fire drill -- how do I take roll outside?
We have no internet in a certain part of the building so every teacher uses their own device / phone to take roll. What happens here Now as school requires us to log attendance on vs ware every class
No way can I mark all copies/tests within a feasible timeframe unless I bring them home.
Our principal listed off a litany of data that has to be stored INDEFINITELY...complete utter madness

km79

happywithlife wrote: »

On a serious note it's all ridiculous and unworkable.
Ok so I take roll call on my pc but there's a fire drill -- how do I take roll outside?
We have no internet in a certain part of the building so every teacher uses their own device / phone to take roll. What happens here Now as school requires us to log attendance on vs ware every class
No way can I mark all copies/tests within a feasible timeframe unless I bring them home.
Our principal listed off a litany of data that has to be stored INDEFINITELY...complete utter madness

Those teachers should not be using their own phones/devices to do so
End of story
If this is the way management want the roll call done to comply with GDPR they will have to provide the facilities to do so.......
If the facilities are not there then this new way of taking roll can not be implemented simple as that

mirrorwall14

km79 wrote: »

What do you mean by protecting google drive independently?
There is an option to encrypt your google drive which I’m sure is adequate?

I mean independently of the screen lock on the device. The iPad has a six digit passcode. Honestly I use it so much in the classroom it wouldn’t take much for a student to learn it by watching me. And I don’t have drive locked apart from that. I’m going to look into that now

r93kaey5p2izun

In my school you needed to see other teachers' timetables so you could click in and mark attendance if you were covering the class. Personally I see no reason why a teacher's timetable would be considered private within the workplace.

km79

Lyric Fancy Windstorm wrote: »

In my school you needed to see other teachers' timetables so you could click in and mark attendance if you were covering the class. Personally I see no reason why a teacher's timetable would be considered private within the workplace.

Cos people are strange !
Either way it doesn’t realy matter what we think
It’s personal data that should only be seen by those who need to see it
Management and admin staff

gctest50

happywithlife wrote: »

............


We have no internet in a certain part of the building so


..........

Get the crew that set it up in the first place to add another Access Point.


Solved.


next

man_no_plan

If everyone is sensible about passwords and careful about leaving stuff lying around there won't be an issue.

There is only trouble if there is misuse of data or a data breach.

I know the return to school is weighing heavily and all that but we need to relax a bit.

Common sense is the first thing that needs to be applied.

doc_17

I didn’t read many posts on this thread. I’m waiting for my employer to tell me what GDPR means.

km79

man_no_plan wrote: »

If everyone is sensible about passwords and careful about leaving stuff lying around there won't be an issue.

There is only trouble if there is misuse of data or a data breach.

I know the return to school is weighing heavily and all that but we need to relax a bit.

Common sense is the first thing that needs to be applied.

That was why the throws was set up
As some teachers were suggesting that they have been told not to have student names in their roll books etc etc
I have my doubts and suspect a lot of hyperbole

People can post here when they return

Corkgirl18

http://gdpr4schools.ie/pdf/TeachingStaff.pdf

Postgrad10

I suppose we could keep a list of who should be in each group that only is opened from a sealed envelope for the purposes of the fire drill?? What about school trips, would we be allowed the list of student names and contact numbers of parents of those we are entrusted with?

km79

Corkgirl18 wrote: »

http://gdpr4schools.ie/pdf/TeachingStaff.pdf

Number 5 states : Never store data relating to school business on unapproved devices or systems .e.g personal smartphones , tablets

..........

Corkgirl18

Postgrad10 wrote: »

What about school trips, would we be allowed the list of student names and contact numbers of parents of those we are entrusted with?

Good question.
What about trip abroad where you need a list of students' medical conditions? Does it all have to be stored online somewhere? Not very practical when Wifi isn't available.

evolving_doors

km79 wrote: »

Number 5 states : Never store data relating to school business on unapproved devices or systems .e.g personal smartphones , tablets

..........

You could still look up VsWare on your phone. Is that storing data?

Anyhow I think this is a load of nonsense that's going to allow students to slip through the gap in the fence. Especially if they catch wind that subs can't call the roll. We can't access any data on students now, just our own classes. So if we are filling in at short notice for another teacher, what then... get the secretary to assign us the teachers classes every single time. That should be fun when there are a lot of teachers out and S&S to organise.
If you can't call the roll and there's someone self-harming or having a sneaky smoke or whatever out of class, how would you know... take another students word for it that everyone's in?

But hey, if I'm forbidden from bringing work home I'm good with that:)

Students using a student number like college or state exams, I'd be in favour..

dory

evolving_doors wrote: »

Especially if they catch wind that subs can't call the roll. We can't access any data on students now, just our own classes. So if we are filling in at short notice for another teacher, what then... get the secretary to assign us the teachers classes every single time.

This happened in our school last year. The DP's job was to figure out who was absent in the morning. And if John was out, then Alex was given his class on VS Ware and could take a roll. It was also a way to tell Alex that he was needed at a certain time, without having to track him down and telling him.

Worked for us, but we don't have a massive school or a high teacher absentee rate.

evolving_doors

dory wrote: »

This happened in our school last year. The DP's job was to figure out who was absent in the morning. And if John was out, then Alex was given his class on VS Ware and could take a roll. It was also a way to tell Alex that he was needed at a certain time, without having to track him down and telling him.

Worked for us, but we don't have a massive school or a high teacher absentee rate.

If you are assigned to another teacher timetable on S&S does it automatically give you access permissions to their roll?

happywithlife

evolving_doors wrote: »

If you are assigned to another teacher timetable on S&S does it automatically give you access permissions to their roll?

There is the facility yes to put them on your vs ware account for the day...they appear in a different colour. Harder though for kids being pulled for resource as that's sometimes not up to date

doc_17

Corkgirl18 wrote: »

http://gdpr4schools.ie/pdf/TeachingStaff.pdf

Is that document produced by the Dept?

km79

doc_17 wrote: »

Is that document produced by the Dept?

It's an embedded link in GDPR section of JMB website

km79

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

I mean independently of the screen lock on the device. The iPad has a six digit passcode. Honestly I use it so much in the classroom it wouldn’t take much for a student to learn it by watching me. And I don’t have drive locked apart from that. I’m going to look into that now

If using the google drive app annoyingly there is absolutely no way to sign out
You have to remove the account every single time

So again it is back to having one device solely for school business imo

mirrorwall14

km79 wrote: »

If using the google drive app annoyingly there is absolutely no way to sign out
You have to remove the account every single time

So again it is back to having one device solely for school business imo

Discovering that at the moment which is ridiculous. My device has fingerprint scanner so I think that’ll have to be the route and stop using the pin code which I know is a silly habit with the reader right there!