Policies

Access policies for instructors, students, support staff and D2L Administrators.

D2L Instructor/Teaching Team Access Policy

Instructors will have access to a D2L course site only if the course's offering department has listed them as a Primary Instructor in UAccess. Instructors must still request a D2L course site as D2L course sites are only built upon request. Once the request has been submitted and the D2L course site has been created, all people listed in UAccess as Primary Instructors for that course will be automatically added to the D2L course site with Instructor access.

If additional members of the Teaching Team require access to a D2L course site, they will need to be manually added by someone that currently has Instructor access to that site.   Anyone with Instructor access has the appropriate permissions to manually add someone to a D2L course site.

D2L Student Access Policy

Only students that are officially registered for a section that is connected to a D2L course site will be added to that D2L course site with the role of Student. Student enrollments are updated at scheduled intervals throughout the day; D2L enrollments are NOT real time.

On a case-by-case basis, requests from Instructors for manual enrollment of students in a D2L course site will be considered only for:

• Groups conducting work that is not associated with credit-bearing courses
• Students finishing work in a current D2L course site to satisfy the requirements for an Incomplete grade earned during their prior enrollment in the course.

D2L course sites are made active to students one week before a semester/session starts and inactive five weeks into the next regular semester. This means that student access to Fall and Winter D2L course sites will be removed after the 5th week of the Spring semester. Access to Spring and Summer D2L course sites will be removed after the 5th week of the Fall semester. This timeline is in compliance with the Grade Appeal Policy as outlined by the UA Registrar's Office.

Additional D2L Course Site Access

The following groups of people have access to D2L course sites, but they do not appear in any Classlist. Their access is automatic and does not require Instructor approval.

• D2L Administrators: Members of the D2L Support Team are able to access and edit ALL D2L course sites. They do not intervene in a course unless specifically requested by a member of the Teaching Team.
• OIA's Online Instructional Consultants and the Office of Digital Learning (ODL) Instructional Designers : The OIA's Consultants as well as ODL Instructional designers have access and can edit ALL D2L course sites.  They do not intervene in a course unless they are specifically working with an instructor on a course.
• Disability Resource Center (DRC) Staff: Members of the DRC Staff have access to D2L course sites that have one or more students registered for document conversion accomodations.
• Department Administrators: Certain departments on campus have staff members who help faculty maintain their course sites. Their abilities to access and edit the course sites within their departments may vary.

Last Updated: September 2015

Learn how long D2l course sites remain accessible after a term is over.

All D2L course sites will be accessible by the instructional team for 10 years or for as long as the University of Arizona has an active contract with D2L.

Privacy Statement, Student Code of Conduct, Code of Academic Integrity,  Intellectual Property and Computing Policies.

University Privacy Statement

University of Arizona Code of Conduct

University of Arizona Code of Academic Integrity

Arizona Board of Regents Policy on Intellectual Property

University of Arizona Computing Policies

Instructions on how to prevent students selling class notes posted in D2L

If you have been frustrated by students using D2L's Classlist to advertise class notes through sites like studysoup.com or notehall.com then please consider the following options:

1. Remove the Classlist tool from your course site. This has the downside of preventing students emailing you and other students from within D2L, but your email address is likely in your Syllabus and they can still send from regular university email. If you do remove it then you can still go to Course Admin and Classlist to email all of your students.
   • If you have never edited a D2L navbar then the easiest way to do this is to go to Course Admin, Navigation and Themes, use the drop down menu to choose "Default Course Home With No Classlist," and click Apply.
   • Please keep in mind a student could still "guess" the Classlist url. To prevent this you will need to go to Course Admin, Tools, and make Classlist Inactive. Doing this also means you will be unable to use Classlist. When you want to use it you must return to Tools and toggle Classlist Active. When done using Classlist you then must return to Tools and make it Inactive again.

2. Consider adding a statement to your syllabus warning students of the repercussions of using a site to sell class notes:

"Selling class notes and/or other course materials to other students or to a third party for resale is not permitted without the instructor’s express written consent. Providing student email addresses to a third party is not permitted. Violations to this and other course rules are subject to the Code of Academic Integrity and may result in course sanctions. Additionally, students who use D2L or UA email to sell or buy these copyrighted materials are subject to Code of Conduct Violations for misuse of electronic resources provided by The University of Arizona. This conduct may also constitute copyright infringement."

Copyright issues to be aware of if you are streaming content you did not create

Copyright Considerations for Streaming Video in UA Courses

If you plan to include content or materials within your videos other than content or materials that you have created yourself (“Third Party Content”), be aware that there are potential copyright issues related to such Third Party Content.  Specifically, a third party may own the copyright in the Third Party Content that you desire to use – even content and material pulled from the internet or other public venues may be copyrighted – so you want to make sure that you are respectful of the Third Party Content owner’s rights. 

Generally, it is likely considered to be “fair use” to make appropriately tailored Third Party Content available to enrolled students via digital networks. 

This is specifically covered in the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries:

 http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/code-of-best-practices-fair-use.pdf

Of course, this leaves us asking what “appropriately tailored” means in this context. The following are some considerations that would support a finding of fair use when streaming video that includes Third Party Content for instructional purposes: 

• Make use of a legally acquired copy
  At best, this would involve linking to an appropriately licensed copy. Alternatively, if you can’t locate such a service and are required to work from a physical copy, be sure this is a legal copy.

• Limit access to those enrolled in the course
  Only eligible students (as well as the instructor and any teaching assistants) should have access to the material.

• Limit the time the work is accessible
  The material should be made available only as long as needed to meet the instructional goals. This might be the end of a section of the course, or at the end of the semester at the latest.

• Limit the amount of the work used
  The material used should be directly tied to the instructor’s pedagogical purpose, and only the portion of the work needed should be used.

• Limit further re-use
  Reasonable measures should be taken to prevent or deter viewers’ ability to make this copy available outside the course site. This could include a clear statement that the work is protected by copyright and made available for the research and instruction.

How to avoid FERPA violations while using lecture capture in the classroom

Is lecture capture a FERPA violation if it records student faces?

If the faces of the students are only seen by other students in the same student cohort, it is not a violation. Example: A student is recorded in Fall 2017 and is only seen by fellow students in the same Fall 2017 course offering. It would be a violation to show this video to anyone else, without obtaining consent from all identifiable students. Showing 2018 students the 2017 video would be a violation, even if it is for the same course.

What are my options to avoid the FERPA violation while re-using recorded lectures?

1. The easiest solution is to only record the screen and microphone. Don’t use a camera pointed at the instructor or at the classroom.
2. If you use a camera to record the professor then try to angle it in such a way that most of the videos will not contain a violation as this will reduce your editing time. You will need to edit any student faces recorded or obtain a signed release from that specific student.
3. If you do record student faces and you want to re-use the material across cohorts then you must obtain individualized consent forms. The instructor may obtain individualized FERPA consents from the students in the recording which allow use of this portion of the recordings. This type of consent can be obtained on a case-by-case basis or from all the students at the outset of a class
   
   In addition to individual consent forms it can be helpful to provide:
   
   - Clear signage in the room that tells students where to sit if they do not want to be on camera.
   - Clear signage in the room that tells students where the camera will record.
   
   Signage is not a substitute for individual consent forms. If you can see a face then you need consent forms.
    
4. Fulfillment of course requirements cannot be conditioned by a student giving permission to publicize (make available outside of class context) his/her/their likeness or voice. Students must have a way to opt out of being recorded and seen by future cohorts. Recording for their cohort’s use is fine. Examples include projects, video discussion boards, or class participation in an online meeting tool.

5. For files that contain student faces, leave them in the Panopto folder that is connected to the original D2L Course site through UA Tools and do not embed them. Files that can only be accessed through UA Tools will not be seen by future cohorts. (This assumes you don’t use Panopto’s Copy or Move feature to physical move the files to the new folder. Moving the files would likely create a FERPA violation. It also assumes you have not changed Panopto’s Share Settings.)
   
   - Embedded lecture capture videos through the D2L HTML Editor’s Insert Stuff icon will be seen by future cohorts.
   - If you do use the Insert Stuff icon and you plan to re-use these videos year after year than you need to download them from panopto, blur the student faces or crop them from the footage, and re-upload them to Panopto before you embed them.
   - The files must be scrubbed (blurred or cropping) before the next cohort can see them. We don’t recommend scrubbing at the end of the semester as it is to easy to get pre-occupied and forget. We recommend you adopt an ongoing supportable workflow.
   - For videos embedded through Insert Stuff, moving them to another folder will not protect you from a violation. The Share Group of Viewers will follow to the new folder as the Share Group is on the individual video object when it is embedded.

   You can download the files and use Adobe Premiere’s feature to track and blur faces. Then reupload the adjusted files. Zooming and cropping the faces out of the MP4 and uploading the scrubbed file is also acceptable.

Forms

Both consent forms are located at the bottom of the Resource section of https://oia.arizona.edu/content/22

UA Media Release forms

• English https://brand.arizona.edu/download/multi-media-consent-and-release-form
• Spanish https://brand.arizona.edu/download/multi-media-consent-and-release-form-spanish-0
   

The Purpose of Capturing Your Lecture:

Recording lectures and posting them for students to review allows for students to go back and review difficult course materials as often as they would like and at the time and location of their choosing.

Universal design for a course allows students equal opportunities to learn. Humans map information into their brains in different ways and at different paces. Allowing students to review materials that they didn’t grasp during lecture is a great addition to any course.

Most of your students are still going to attend class even when you record your lectures. Students typically watch only a few minutes of a recording before moving on to other activities. If you feel you are having trouble with attendance due to lecture capture then let’s talk about what is happening in your class as it may be a great opportunity to involve more active learning techniques to enhance student engagement.

Other Video Considerations That Should be Resolved Before Publishing:

Before you make any video public you should make sure anyone seen in the video has signed a release. Even the faculty member on camera should have a signed release. The release not only protects you in using their face, but also protects you for what they discuss and present. Do not record copyrighted images and video without gaining consent from the copyright holder. When you make a video public there is no longer a Fair Use copyright exemption.