Transparency and the Marketplace for Student Data

Student lists are commercially available for purchase on the basis of ethnicity, affluence, religion, lifestyle, awkwardness, and even a perceived or predicted need for family planning services. This study seeks to provide an understanding of the commercial marketplace for student data and the interaction with privacy law. Over several years, Fordham CLIP reviewed publicly-available sources, made public records requests to educational institutions, and collected marketing materials received by high school students. The study uncovered and documents an overall lack of transparency in the student information commercial marketplace and an absence of law to protect student information.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/clip/1003/thumbnail.jp

Privacy and Cloud Computing in Public Schools

Today, data driven decision-making is at the center of educational policy debates in the United States. School districts are increasingly turning to rapidly evolving technologies and cloud computing to satisfy their educational objectives and take advantage of new opportunities for cost savings, flexibility, and always-available service among others. As public schools in the United States rapidly adopt cloud-computing services, and consequently transfer increasing quantities of student information to third-party providers, privacy issues become more salient and contentious. The protection of student privacy in the context of cloud computing is generally unknown both to the public and to policy-makers. This study thus focuses on K-12 public education and examines how school districts address privacy when they transfer student information to cloud computing service providers. The goals of the study are threefold: first, to provide a national picture of cloud computing in public schools; second, to assess how public schools address their statutory obligations as well as generally accepted privacy principles in their cloud service agreements; and, third, to make recommendations based on the findings to improve the protection of student privacy in the context of cloud computing. Fordham CLIP selected a national sample of school districts including large, medium and small school systems from every geographic region of the country. Using state open public record laws, Fordham CLIP requested from each selected district all of the district’s cloud service agreements, notices to parents, and computer use policies for teachers. All of the materials were then coded against a checklist of legal obligations and privacy norms. The purpose for this coding was to enable a general assessment and was not designed to provide a compliance audit of any school district nor of any particular vendor.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/clip/1001/thumbnail.jp

Privacy and Cloud Computing in Public Schools

Today, data driven decision-making is at the center of educational policy debates in the United States. School districts are increasingly turning to rapidly evolving technologies and cloud computing to satisfy their educational objectives and take advantage of new opportunities for cost savings, flexibility, and always-available service among others. As public schools in the United States rapidly adopt cloud-computing services, and consequently transfer increasing quantities of student information to third-party providers, privacy issues become more salient and contentious. The protection of student privacy in the context of cloud computing is generally unknown both to the public and to policy-makers. This study thus focuses on K-12 public education and examines how school districts address privacy when they transfer student information to cloud computing service providers. The goals of the study are threefold: first, to provide a national picture of cloud computing in public schools; second, to assess how public schools address their statutory obligations as well as generally accepted privacy principles in their cloud service agreements; and, third, to make recommendations based on the findings to improve the protection of student privacy in the context of cloud computing. Fordham CLIP selected a national sample of school districts including large, medium and small school systems from every geographic region of the country. Using state open public record laws, Fordham CLIP requested from each selected district all of the district’s cloud service agreements, notices to parents, and computer use policies for teachers. All of the materials were then coded against a checklist of legal obligations and privacy norms. The purpose for this coding was to enable a general assessment and was not designed to provide a compliance audit of any school district nor of any particular vendor.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/clip/1001/thumbnail.jp

Privacy and Cloud Computing in Public Schools

Today, data driven decision-making is at the center of educational policy debates in the United States. School districts are increasingly turning to rapidly evolving technologies and cloud computing to satisfy their educational objectives and take advantage of new opportunities for cost savings, flexibility, and always-available service among others. As public schools in the United States rapidly adopt cloud-computing services, and consequently transfer increasing quantities of student information to third-party providers, privacy issues become more salient and contentious. The protection of student privacy in the context of cloud computing is generally unknown both to the public and to policy-makers. This study thus focuses on K-12 public education and examines how school districts address privacy when they transfer student information to cloud computing service providers. The goals of the study are threefold: first, to provide a national picture of cloud computing in public schools; second, to assess how public schools address their statutory obligations as well as generally accepted privacy principles in their cloud service agreements; and, third, to make recommendations based on the findings to improve the protection of student privacy in the context of cloud computing. Fordham CLIP selected a national sample of school districts including large, medium and small school systems from every geographic region of the country. Using state open public record laws, Fordham CLIP requested from each selected district all of the district’s cloud service agreements, notices to parents, and computer use policies for teachers. All of the materials were then coded against a checklist of legal obligations and privacy norms. The purpose for this coding was to enable a general assessment and was not designed to provide a compliance audit of any school district nor of any particular vendor.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/clip/1001/thumbnail.jp

Focus on Fairness, Efficiency, and the Law: Response. Efficiency and Equity: What Else Can Be Gained by Combining Coase and Rawls

Professors Swygert and Yanes seek to bring efficiency and equity to bear explicitly on the economic analysis of law by merging Rawlsean social contract philosophy into law and economics\u27 basic premise, the Coase Theorem. We are in complete agreement with Swygert and Yanes that good legal policy should be concerned with both efficiency and equity, and we welcome their attempt to merge the two as a useful step in an important debate. Ultimately, though, we are unconvinced by their argument as it currently stands for two reasons. First, by focusing only on the way in which their approach might affect how the law regulates the exchange of goods or legal entitlements (i.e., contract law), the authors provide no explanation of how their approach could be used to determine the initial allocation of goods and legal entitlements (i.e., property law). If legal policy is to take equity as seriously as efficiency, it is critical that equity be considered when legal entitlements are assigned, not merely when parties choose to trade their entitlements. Consequently, the omission of any discussion of how entitlements might be initially assigned under the authors\u27 proposed theoretical framework is of critical importance

An Explanation of SRS Beam Cleanup in Graded-index Fibers and the Absence of SRS Beam Cleanup in Step-index Fibers

Beam cleanup via stimulated Raman scattering in multimode fibers is modeled by numerically considering the competition between the Stokes modes of graded-index and step-index fibers. The relative gain of each Stokes mode is calculated by considering the overlap the various pump and Stokes modes of the fibers. Mode competition in a graded-index fiber favors the LP01 Stokes mode while mode competition in a step-index fiber does not favor the LP01 Stokes mode. This model explains why beam cleanup has only been reported for graded-index fibers and not for step-index fibers

A functional map of NFκB signaling identifies novel modulators and multiple system controls

Using cell-based genomic screens and functional assays, positive and negative modulators of NFκB signaling were identified and mapped onto the known NFκB signaling cascade

A smooth cascade of wrinkles at the edge of a floating elastic film

The mechanism by which a patterned state accommodates the breaking of translational symmetry by a phase boundary or a sample wall has been addressed in the context of Landau branching in type-I superconductors, refinement of magnetic domains, and compressed elastic sheets. We explore this issue by studying an ultrathin polymer sheet floating on the surface of a fluid, decorated with a pattern of parallel wrinkles. At the edge of the sheet, this corrugated profile meets the fluid meniscus. Rather than branching of wrinkles into generations of ever-smaller sharp folds, we discover a smooth cascade in which the coarse pattern in the bulk is matched to fine structure at the edge by the continuous introduction of discrete, higher wavenumber Fourier modes. The observed multiscale morphology is controlled by a dimensionless parameter that quantifies the relative strength of the edge forces and the rigidity of the bulk pattern.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure