While Google reserves the right to browse all data on its servers, they promise to protect the security and privacy of data. Their backup of data is probably (I'm guessing) superior to any drives or disks we use here too. If something leaks or crashes for some reason, Google is liability free (according to the terms), and the ELP cannot sue them, but that does not necessarily mean (I'm guessing, again, I don't know for sure) the risk is any higher than keeping things on our drives or disks or ICU's servers.
Just to add a little context to my delicious posting, my search for "Is Google safe?" was motivated by a conversation I had with Mike in the copy room. He told me that he was worried about privacy and security with using Google services and that he had done an Internet search and found some reason to believe we should be cautious about this. I had never done a search on that, so I tried it and the LawAndrew article was the only substantial one I hit.
I read through the blog and through Google's terms of service, and agreed with the consensus(?) on the LawAndrew blog that Google is just as good (and just as risky) as anything. Just like any data on any hard drive, we need to back up documents we don't want to lose, and we need to keep our passwords strong and secret. Other than that consideration, there seems to be, so far on the blogosphere, no publicized instances of leaks or lost data from Google services. If there were, we would hear about them - we assume.
However, to be safe, we may need a policy or suggestion of how to backup data. Without network connections, nothing on Google can be accessed, so having periodically backed up offline archives of documents is important. The only way I know how to do that is Other Actions - > Export as HTML (.zip), and seems to work well.
We may also need a policy on what information (students' personal data? grades?) should not be stored on Google servers, which are open to Google employees and affiliates, and to anyone who gets a teacher or ELP password someway.
I hope we can touch on this at our next meeting.
Mark
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Bill Harshbarger <billh@icu.ac.jp> wrote:
Hi,
Responding to the article that Mark tagged about Google doc security. -- I actually find the security greater than I expected. I've been running some tests and I have been very pleased with the results. I agree though, that no information on the internet is completely safe, just as no information in our computer files or filing cabinets is completely safe, but Google docs doesn't appear to be any less secure that what we have used up to now.
Cheers,
Bill
--
Bill Harshbarger, Ph.D.
Director, English Language Program
International Christian University
3-10-2 Osawa, Mitaka-shi
Tokyo 181-8585
+ (81) 422-33-3219
billh@icu.ac.jp
http://indirector.blogspot.com
--
-----------------------------------------
Mark Christianson
English Language Program
International Christian University
3-10-2 Osawa, Mitaka
Tokyo, Japan 181-8585
Tel: 0422-33-3497
Fax: 0422-33-3500
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