Empowering creators: Student agency and digital safety in alternative assignments

Abstract

This poster focuses on critical questions and examples of how student agency, privacy, and intellectual freedom can become a focus of open pedagogy and alternative assignments.Increasingly, instructors are offering opportunities for students to publicly share their work online — be it a class website, blog, or paper alternatives such as podcast episodes or short videos. These assignments have great potential to impact students’ digital identities and awareness of their own intellectual property rights beyond the parameters of the academic environment. This takes on increased importance when we consider that students from already marginalized identities may be more vulnerable to online harassment or doxxing.Through our work in instructional design and digital scholarship, we have collected models and resources to incorporate these themes as additional learning opportunities and to help instructors facilitate safe learning environments for their students. The model of awareness students develop will continue to be relevant beyond the classroom, as our social and professional lives become increasingly online.A video summary of this presentation is available on the 2020 UW Teaching and Learning Symposium website.