In order to support teaching and learning at VIU, personally identifiable data about employees and students is collected and stored by the learning technologies in use at VIU. Access to and use of this data is governed by the Use of Information Technology policy (45.01) at VIU for all employees. This page provides some information about the specific data collected by VIULearn. This page is designed to help instructors at VIU make informed decisions when using technology at VIU. If you have any concerns or questions about privacy, security, or compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), please contact FIPPA@viu.ca.
VIULearn is VIU’s learning management system. This system provides a space for all academic, trades, and online professional development and training courses to share content, and collect student work. Use of VIULearn is not mandatory at VIU, but course spaces and course enrolments are automatically created and updated to reflect VIU’s official registration and records systems even if the online space is not used for a course. All data for VIULearn is stored on AWS servers located in Montreal, QB.
Data Required for Account Creation
All VIU employees and students in academic, trades, or online Professional Development and Training courses are automatically given a user account in VIULearn in order to allow users to access the system and be automatically enrolled in the online course spaces. A user account will be created for employees and students even if they never choose to log in to the VIULearn platform. When a user account is created, VIULearn gathers and stored the following information:
- First name (or Preferred Name from the Student Record if this field is filled out)
- Last name
- Email address
- Course enrolments
- Role at VIU (Student or Employee)
Data Collected During Use
When using the VIULearn platform, VIULearn will collect a user’s IP address and any information uploaded or submitted by the user including course content files, course activities, student work, grades, feedback, and information entered into a user’s profile. VIULearn also collects information about how students interact with course content by providing basic information about page views, time spent on specific content topics, logs of quiz and assignment activity, and whether or not a student has viewed assignment feedback. For course instructors, VIULearn keeps a record of changes made to assignments, grades, and quizzes in the tool event logs. For all users, VIULearn logs access dates and times for the system and for individual courses.
Data Access
Access to this data is restricted by course membership and user role in the system or in a specific course. Student access to course materials and activities can be limited using Release Conditions but all instructors in a course have the same universal access to all activities and student submissions in the course space.
Student submissions to course assignments, quizzes, and surveys are visible to all instructors of the course where the work was submitted and to the student who submitted them. Student submissions to course discussions or group assignments may be visible to members of a group set up by the instructor or all members of the classlist in addition to all instructors in the course depending on the settings the instructor chooses.
Employees may be students in some courses, such as internal training for WHMIS, Health and Safety, and Data Security. When accessing a course as a student, employees have the same access as VIU students to that course and will have the same data gathered about their participation in the course.
CIEL staff have the ability to access any course in the system in order to administer the system and assist VIU instructors and students with the platform. Access by CIEL staff to courses within the VIULearn platform is only on an as needed basis to support the VIU community and is carried out in compliance with university policies and procedures that protect confidentiality of personal information.
Data Retention
In order to minimize the amount of student data retained in VIULearn, courses are kept for no more than two academic years after the course end date. Every July, CIEL permanently deletes courses from two academic years previous. For example, in 2022, CIEL will delete all courses from the 2019-20 academic year.
Instructors in VIULearn are able to create a course export or request a development space to retain their teaching materials for courses to be deleted. Student work must be retained for one year following the submission of grades for a given semester. The VIULearn data retention process retains student data for one year longer than required to allow time for any grade disputes or other processes that might require historical student data. If there is an institutional need to keep student data beyond this time period, please contact CIEL to learn how to export the required data for secure offline storage.