Slides from Helen CullyerSlides from Tracy MitranoUniversities and colleges are collecting and analyzing increasing quantities of personal digital data about their faculty, students and staff, while academic publishers and libraries are beginning to track the online behavior of consumers and users of scholarly resources. On the one hand, these activities are essential tools for institutions and organizations as they strive to diversify their workforces and / or student populations, improve educational, student, and library services, and enhance the marketing and discoverability of scholarly resources. On the other hand, the amount of personal digital data that is now being collected raises a number of concerns about the privacy of individuals. What sorts of data are being collected? To whom are those data made available? How are they being used? And how could they be misused? The aims of this session are to identify some of the most pressing privacy issues facing higher education and in particular the scholarly communications ecosystem; and to begin a discussion about how academic institutions, libraries, academic presses, and funders can work together to develop systems, policies and standards that protect individuals' privacy but enable organizations and institutions to collect and analyze personal data so that they can fulfill their missions more effectively.
