The corona virus has also led to distance learning and online events in universities.
Unlike in schools, the conditions for this were and are good.
Lecturers and students have the necessary digital devices and use them in teaching.
With learning management systems, digital offers are made accessible to students.
Online communication via email, messenger or video conference is part of everyday academic life.
Nevertheless, the temporary complete conversion of campus life and classroom teaching to digital communication channels and video formats in March 2020 was a technical overload.
Schools and colleges are designed for on-site dialogic teaching and learning for educational, social, and psychological reasons.
Distance learning is a support construct for those who cannot attend in person for health, work or other reasons.
The transfer of lectures, seminars, laboratories and studios could only be managed quickly with external help and the use of commercial and manufacturer-dependent (proprietary) video software from the United States such as Microsoft Teams, Webex or Zoom.
Technically it worked well, but there are legal problems.
US companies are subject to US jurisdiction.
With the US Cloud Act of 2018, the American government abolished all forms of data protection.
It has secured full access to all user and system data generated with US software, regardless of server location or laws in force in other countries.
The problem is that neither universities, as contractual partners of these companies, nor users have any influence on whether, where and which data is stored and who has access to it.
This goes against the European General Data Protection Regulation, which states that users must consent before their personal data is processed.
Legally compliant teaching materials
According to the judgments of the European Court of Justice on Safe Harbor (2015) and Privacy Shield (2020) and the statements of several German data protection officers, neither MS Teams nor Webex or Zoom can be operated in accordance with European data protection law.
In December 2020, Microsoft was the first US company to react to this problem and published a statement on the European Data Protection Board.
These are directives that stipulate across Europe that the storage and transfer of personal data is only permitted to the extent necessary to fulfill a previously defined purpose.
Microsoft pledged to inform those affected "if Microsoft has been legally obliged by a government order to release data to US security authorities".
The company also promised to "take legal action and appeal to the US courts to challenge the government's order to release the data."
However, this does not prevent American services from accessing user data.
Rather, it shows that American companies themselves are being held hostage by the intelligence services.
Anyone who refuses to provide this data loses the basis of business in the United States.
Data protection regulations do not protect data (that would be strategies for data backup and data security), but basic rights such as the right to informational self-determination, elementary personal rights and privacy.
Fundamental rights must be respected, especially since there are legally compliant and tried-and-tested solutions that schools and universities were able to use even before the outbreak of the pandemic.
These include Big Blue Button, an open source application designed for teaching.
The software can be integrated directly as an activity into learning management systems such as Moodle, allowing easy access control and assignment of rights via the school or university account.
Interfaces to important learning and content management systems are already integrated.
With this tool designed as a digital classroom, teachers can set up rooms themselves and communicate with students via camera and microphone.
There are presentation options, screen transfer, a whiteboard as a digital pinboard, a chat function for group and individual messages and so-called breakout rooms for working in groups.
There are also options for jointly editing texts, voting and the like.
This allows a variety of didactic methods in the classroom.
There are also options for jointly editing texts, voting and the like.
This allows a variety of didactic methods in the classroom.
There are also options for jointly editing texts, voting and the like.
This allows a variety of didactic methods in the classroom.