The mobility has effects on the educational environment. To talk about risks and the best practices, this year’s RNP Forum receives lawyer and professor specialized in Digital Law, Patricia Peck, who has worked with teaching institutions since 2005 and is the creator of the iStart Institute, which teaches ethical, secure, legal and healthy use of technology with the Família Mais Segura na Internet (“A Safer Family on the Internet”) Movement. In the following interview, she gives a preview of the issues she will present in her lecture on July 25, at 2pm, in Brasília.

What has changed in education and work with the digital medium?

The main change was the elimination of walls. The digital medium has no physical frontiers, and this is a great challenge when speaking of security at the classrooms, as well as the security of work information. Certainly, the reach of the digital allows to potentiate the most out of teaching-learning (as is the case of use of resources long distance teaching, Moodle and others), or even working from anywhere, at any time (through the Scholar Portal, or by having a webmail in the cloud such as with Office 365, or VPN with remote access). However, if it is not done in the right way, with ethics, by using protective resources and measures, it also brings new risks for people and for the institutions. Moreover, this involves not only the possibility or leakage of information, as happened recently with a teaching institution in São Paulo, but also labor risk, with regard to questions about overtime in extracurricular activities with teachers interacting with students via social media and WhatsApp.

What is the main impact of mobility for teaching institutions?

We may state that the teaching institution does not hold the control of relations of the scholar community, usually restricted to its physical perimeter. The mobility and the digital means greatly increased the responsibility of the teaching institutions over situations that would previously be understood as occurred outside of the school, but that, nowadays, are much more integrated and mixed, making it hard, sometimes, to limit what is or is not role of the school or the university.

In relation to the academic environment, what is the impact of mobility on the lives of teachers and researchers?

Every technology has its benefits and its burdens. Thus, there are two types of impacts: a positive one, to be able to act anywhere and not needing to move,necessarily,to the teaching institution or the research center. But, on the other hand, we live increasingly, all the time, connected to work, which oftentimes generates a confusion between the personal and professional lives, increases the stress level and even technological addiction. We still need to learn how to use these resources in a healthier manner.

What must be adjusted in employment contracts?

The contracts of professors and researchers need various adjustments to adhere to current laws and be updated with the technological reality in which the academic world lives, which has transformed the teaching and learning model. There is a need for more specific clauses about the duty of secrecy and confidentiality, information security, posture in social media, ethical and legal use of digital contents complying with copyright rules and ABNT standards for source and authorship citations, cession of image rights for the institution, possibility of recording or filming of the classroom (or its limitation or restriction), interactions with students to avoid excess intimacy, use of adequate language to the educational environment (even more in the age of electronic proofs and machine-witnesses), that the use of technological resources and access to the institution’s information  out of the regular business hours shall not constitute overwork, considering they may occur by liberality and convenience of the collaborator itself, among others. There are approximately 18 new adjustment items for legal conformity of the employment contract and a greater protection of the teaching institution itself.

Regarding the work environment, it is known that the mobility increases overworking and extra hours, since the employee that has a corporate phone is always connected. How can they protect themselves from it? Are there legal measures that benefit both the employee and the employer?

The best legal measure is to make the rules clear. We have supported various institutions to standardize the use of mobility resources at work, limiting what is acceptable and what must be avoided, not only in the financial aspect, but also for health reasons. Therefore, a standard or a policy is a very efficient manner. In addition, one may use the technology itself to support this orientation, where legal disclaimers may be inserted in graphic interfaces, or even a certain access is blocked whenever there is a need to enjoy a period of rest or vacation. Lastly, it is important to provide training, because in this way one may show the entire potential of technology in order to benefit them both, and that is safe for everybody, too.

Read more about mobility at the 2015 RNP Forum website.