{"id":1401,"date":"2012-01-08T18:54:35","date_gmt":"2012-01-08T17:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/?p=1401"},"modified":"2012-01-08T18:54:35","modified_gmt":"2012-01-08T17:54:35","slug":"safe-social-networking-alternatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/01\/08\/safe-social-networking-alternatives\/","title":{"rendered":"Safe social networking alternatives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-1403\" title=\"Safe social networking alternatives\" src=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/wordle_social_networking.gif\" alt=\"Safe social networking alternatives\" width=\"306\" height=\"185\">In a previous post that I co-authored with Jeff Dionne, <a title=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/2011\/12\/11\/a-thorny-issue-protecting-teachers-and-learners-right-to-privacy\/\" href=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/2011\/12\/11\/a-thorny-issue-protecting-teachers-and-learners-right-to-privacy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A thorny issue: Protecting teachers\u2019 and learners\u2019 right to privacy<\/a>, we highlighted some of the ethical and legal risks of using popular commercial social networking and micro blogging sites such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter for educational purposes. Although modern LMS&#8217; built on Social Constructivist approaches provide a number of tools for collaboration and social interaction, they don&#8217;t quite offer the persistence and immediacy of the services offered by Facebook, Google, Twitter, et al. So as a follow up to that article, here&#8217;s some secure, free and open source alternatives.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:justify;\">What are the criteria that make a social networking platform lower-risk?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">For details about what some of the risks are, please see <a title=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/2011\/12\/11\/a-thorny-issue-protecting-teachers-and-learners-right-to-privacy\/\" href=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/2011\/12\/11\/a-thorny-issue-protecting-teachers-and-learners-right-to-privacy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A thorny issue: Protecting teachers\u2019 and learners\u2019 right to privacy<\/a>. Here&#8217;s a few points that make a social networking platform more ethical and legal for your learners to use:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align:justify;\">\n<li>Own and administer your teachers&#8217; and learners&#8217; personal information and user generated content.<\/li>\n<li>Audit and monitor all channels of communication, including private messages.<\/li>\n<li>Manage and define individual teachers&#8217; and learners&#8217; user access privileges.<\/li>\n<li>Take down any inappropriate posts, comments or content as soon as they&#8217;re reported or detected.<\/li>\n<li>Prevent inappropriate or distracting messages from being shown to teachers and learners, i.e. advertising, apps, games, etc.<\/li>\n<li>In the case of younger learners, contact parents and\/or guardians quickly and easily, e.g. via email, as soon as issues arise.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:justify;\">How can we achieve this?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">There are free and open source projects that enable schools, academies, colleges, universities and companies to create and maintain their own social networking services. It&#8217;s early days but the outlook is promising.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-1385\" title=\"StatusNet\" src=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Status.net-logo-color-big-300x180.png\" alt=\"StatusNet\" width=\"144\" height=\"86\"><a title=\"http:\/\/status.net\" href=\"http:\/\/status.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">StatusNet<\/a><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">StatusNet is free open source micro blogging software that offers functionality similar to Twitter, Facebook and Google+. However, StatusNet seeks to provide the potential for open, inter-service and distributed communications between micro blogging communities by adopting the OStatus micro blogging communications standard. Enterprises and individuals can install and control their own services and data.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">StatusNet is ready for production use (Version 1.0.1) and I\u2019ve installed an instance on my server: <a title=\"http:\/\/statusnet.matbury.com\/index.php\" href=\"http:\/\/statusnet.matbury.com\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/statusnet.matbury.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><strong>[update]<\/strong> Having explored StatusNet further, I think it&#8217;s still not ready for production use. For example, there&#8217;s no moderator or admin interface for managing user accounts so you have to go into the database to find the list of users&#8217; IDs in order to discover their profile pages.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:justify;\"><a title=\"http:\/\/diasporaproject.org\/\" href=\"http:\/\/diasporaproject.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1402\" title=\"Diaspora*\" src=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/diaspora-logo.png\" alt=\"Diaspora*\" width=\"157\" height=\"63\">Diaspora*<\/a><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">Diaspora* is currently in Alpha development so it isn&#8217;t yet ready for production use. It&#8217;s a free personal web server that implements a distributed social networking and micro blogging service. Installations of the software can optionally form nodes (termed &#8220;pods&#8221;) which make up the distributed Diaspora social network. Diaspora is intended to address privacy concerns related to centralized social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, by allowing users set up their own server (or &#8220;pod&#8221;) to host content; pods can then interact to share status updates, photographs, and other social data. It allows its users to host their data with a traditional web host, a cloud-based host, an ISP, or a friend. (Source: <a title=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diaspora_%28software%29\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diaspora_%28software%29\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wikipedia.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">There are currently a number of experimental Diaspora* pods up and running that users can join. If you want to try it out, <a title=\"http:\/\/podupti.me\/\" href=\"http:\/\/podupti.me\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here&#8217;s a list of available pods<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">The development team are currently working on a feature whereby teachers and learners can export their own data, making it easier for schools, academies, colleges, universities and companies to comply with existing freedom of information laws.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/buddypress-logo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-1453\" title=\"BuddyPress\" src=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/buddypress-logo.png\" alt=\"BuddyPress\" width=\"198\" height=\"46\"><\/a><a title=\"http:\/\/buddypress.org\/\" href=\"http:\/\/buddypress.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BuddyPress<\/a><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">BuddyPress is a plugin for WordPress which transforms it into a social networking platform. It&#8217;s smaller in scope compared to StatusNet and Diaspora* but it&#8217;s also ready for use on production servers. It isn&#8217;t possible to connect instances of BuddyPress into a network so users have to rely on RSS feeds and pingbacks to keep track of other BuddyPress sites. It&#8217;s suitable if you only want your social networks to run from a single site and collaboration between different schools, academies, colleges, universities, agencies and companies will be difficult.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">I&#8217;m currently experimenting with an installation of <a title=\"http:\/\/buddy.matbury.com\/\" href=\"http:\/\/buddy.matbury.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WordPress + BuddyPress here<\/a>. Please feel free to enroll and join in!<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align:justify;\"><a title=\"http:\/\/elgg.org\/index.php\" href=\"http:\/\/elgg.org\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1486\" title=\"elgg.\" src=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/elgg_small.png\" alt=\"elgg.\" width=\"160\" height=\"87\">elgg.<\/a><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">Elgg is an award-winning open source social networking engine that provides a robust framework on which to build all kinds of social environments, from a campus wide social network for your university, school or college or an internal collaborative platform for your organization through to a brand-building communications tool for your company and its clients. (Source: <a title=\"http:\/\/elgg.org\/about.php\" href=\"http:\/\/elgg.org\/about.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/elgg.org\/about.php<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">I&#8217;ve installed <a title=\"http:\/\/elgg.matbury.com\" href=\"http:\/\/elgg.matbury.com\">elgg. on my server<\/a> and I&#8217;m exploring its functions and possible uses for educational purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a previous post that I co-authored with Jeff Dionne, A thorny issue: Protecting teachers\u2019 and learners\u2019 right to privacy, we highlighted some of the ethical and legal risks of using popular commercial social networking and micro blogging sites such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter for educational purposes. Although modern LMS&#8217; built on Social Constructivist&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/01\/08\/safe-social-networking-alternatives\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Safe social networking alternatives<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[27,35,76,95,96,98,99,106,107],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matbury.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}