The students of the future will demand the learning support that is appropriate for their situation or context. Nothing more, nothing less, Dr. Marcus Specht

Since the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, learning and teaching has gone digital. Few could have predicted the incredible speed of this change. Certainly, Eurydice’s 2019 report on Digital Education in Schools revealed significant gaps in teaching and assessing digital competences across Europe that seemed to imply action for years to come. Yet in the space of a few weeks, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Hangouts have moved from being unfamiliar apps to daily tools in many people’s lives. But are they safe? Are there security issues that we need to tackle in order to continue this online learning revolution?

Evidence of the impact of video conferencing tools is clear, and the figures speak for themselves. Zoom has increased its active users from 10 million in December to 200 million in March; Microsoft Teams reported an increase of 12 million users in March alone, with users generating about 900 million meetings during the early stages of the covid-19 outbreak. The average daily users of Skype also increased by 70 % in a month. Google Hangouts, Meet and WebEx have also seen dramatic increases – in some countries more 25 times higher usage compared to pre-covid times.

Millions of people have also recently been tempted by large online learning platforms such as edX, FutureLearn and Coursera. Enrolments for social science, humanities and personal development courses on the Coursera platform, for example, have been 8 times higher since the covid-19 outbreak. These platforms offer free courses led by professors from high-ranking universities, and may provide many people with some sense of control over their lives at a time of economic uncertainty and anxiety. 

The sharp increase in the number of users in combination with a rise in security hacking and cyber crime does, however, raise some concerns. Every participant in an online learning platform can become a potential target of hacking. 

‘Zoombombing’ is a term that has hit the headlines since the covid-19 outbreak, and it refers to the disruption of Zoom conference meetings by unauthorised participants. In Singapore, during the first week of lockdown, the streaming of a geography lesson was interrupted with inappropriate pictures and comments from strangers, and forced the suspension of Zoom as a tool for home-based learning. Schools in China, California (USA), Taiwan and Germany have also witnessed hacking attempts and racist or sexist interruptions of live streaming sessions, with school communities also suspending the use of the tool. 

How has Zoom addressed these security concerns? The response has been focused primarily on the clarification of encryption practices as well as on a plan to freeze feature updates to address emerging security issues.

Are there any ‘better’ and safer online learning tools to use? There is no obvious answer to this as tool selection depends on personal and company-specific requirements. Besides, this is not an ‘either-or’ choice, as a combination of online learning tools is common practice. Tools such as Zoom are considered to be more effective for internal organisation, while others like Microsoft Teams are generally preferred for external organisation.  Some may argue that unresolved security issues may defeat the development of online learning. However, while no online tool will ever be completely secure, risks have to be balanced against the benefits to learning and teaching. This aspect has been particularly clear during the covid-19 pandemic when schools and other education institutions have been unable to open. 

As users, we can also learn to minimise the security problems and avoid sensitive information landing in the wrong hands. To start with, host(s) of meetings can allow access only to registered participants. Participants can be required to sign-in with a specific password for each meeting rather than relying on the same password for multiple meetings. Zoom also offers a virtual ‘waiting room’ to control access to the meeting. The audio/video recording feature of video conferencing tools needs to be available only to the host(s) so that all shared information remains private. Other practical ideas to improve online teaching have been explored in this interview.

Many recent security concerns are related to naïve and inexperienced use, and should not be a major barrier to progress. Meanwhile it is worth seeing current reality in the perspective of the European Commission’s 2018 Digital Education Action Plan (an updated Action Plan is currently being prepared) which sets out three priorities: making better use of digital technology for teaching and learning, developing digital competences and skills, and improving education through better data analysis and foresight. The only element that the strategy failed to predict was the catalyst of a global health crisis to push us to radically change the way we learn.

Authors: Nicole Vasileiou and David Crosier