Privacy is always a concern in social media; especially in systems hosted in or accessible by your workplace, where wrong privacy settings can cause trouble. If we consider Facebook, for example, there have been many incidents where accidental over-sharing with an employer led to severe implications at work. In our case the platform is student-centric and the bulk of information exchange relate to academic performance. Fear of unwanted access to personal information, from a lecturer for example, could lead to hesitation from the users to share content.

For this reason, it was decided that any decisions on privacy will be dealt with by the user. The system’s settings will all default to private, and it will be up to each individual user to change which information is displayed publicly. Any public side of the platform, such as discussion boards, comments and user profiles, will use aliases (or, nicknames) for the users’ public profiles and posts. Even though user accounts will be based on the University’s database system to handle account information, users will be presented with an option to choose an alias at first log-in or have a randomly created one allocated at them by the system.

Piggy-backing on the University database will allow for uniformity of account information. For example, users will be able to log-in using the same credentials they use for any other University service. It will also allow the system to populate their accounts with information from the student records; namely in which course they are enrolled and which classes they attend. These details will, by default, be visible only to themselves, unless they explicitly choose to have them appear on their public profile.

At launch, unregistered users will only be able to read content and will have no option to comment or take part in discussions. This aims mostly to minimize chances of unwanted or un-moderated content. If at a later state it is decided that such users should be able to have some level of participation (eg. prospective students who don’t yet have an account with the University), the same privacy settings implemented to students accounts will be followed, perhaps with restricted access rights to certain areas of the platform.

Exceptions will be in place for accounts of lecturers and academic staff, though. Since academics hold a position of power compared to the students, it would be appropriate to indicate when an account belongs to this group. This can be done by a simple indication next to the user name, such as ‘lecturer’, ‘administrator’, ‘staff’. Still, these accounts will have the option to create aliases, should they wish for, even though the default setting will be to display their name as written in their University account.

Lastly, users should be aware of identification by associations. Even though the system will not reveal any personal information without the user’s explicit consent, users should be aware of the content they disclose. Since the purpose of the platform is for user commentary, opinions and views, it is up to the users to ensure that they do not disclose information that could lead to their identification. Prompt reminders of this responsibility can appear at relevant areas – at first login, for example, or before final submission of any post.