Privacy - an Issue for eLearning? A Trend Analysis Reflecting the Attitude of European eLearning Users

TL;DR

This paper analyzes European eLearning users' attitudes towards privacy, revealing that while they value privacy protection, their behaviors and attitudes differ slightly, and it suggests ways to help users reconcile privacy concerns with their activities.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive trend analysis of user attitudes towards privacy in eLearning, including legal issues, a study on user perspectives, and initial solutions for privacy management.

Findings

Users care about privacy protection in eLearning.

Attitudes and behaviors towards privacy slightly differ among users.

Proposed initial approaches to help users balance privacy requirements and activities.

Abstract

Availing services provided via the Internet became a widely accepted means in organising one's life. Beside others, eLearning goes with this trend as well. But, while employing Internet service makes life more convenient, at the same time, it raises risks with respect to the protection of the users' privacy. This paper analyses the attitudes of eLearning users towards their privacy by, initially, pointing out terminology and legal issues connected with privacy. Further, the concept and implementation as well as a result analysis of a conducted study is presented, which explores the problem area from different perspectives. The paper will show that eLearning users indeed care for the protection of their personal information when using eLearning services. However, their attitudes and behaviour slightly differ. In conclusion, we provide first approaches of assisting possibilities for users how to resolve the difference of requirements and their actual activities with respect to privacy protection.