From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 20:53:42 -0600 IT staff? When you're talking about university presses, as Joe was, I daresay with few exceptions only the larger presses have anyone on their staff dedicated to IT issues. Sandy Thatcher At 8:48 PM +0100 2/13/14, LIBLICENSE wrote: > > From: Ken Masters <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 07:50:51 +0100 > > Hi All > > I think Joe is correct. And I think part of the reason is that, in > huge organisations, so much responsibility has been handed over to IT > staff, that very little of what they do is known to senior management > (apart from the IT staff who serve in senior management, of course). > > This is a very real problem, because senior management tends to > classify everything to do with computers as "IT stuff," and fails to > see that what their IT staff does reflects directly on the > institution, especially when institutional ethics are involved. In > this case, the IT staff will know that they are collecting data, but > it is likely that the senior management don't know about it. (For > example, how many librarians on this list have ever asked their IT > staff about what information they are gathering on their users, how, > where and for how long the data are stored, and discussed the ethics > of that?). > > To answer your question regarding instances of tracking by > organisations: I don't know of any, but the study of such tracking by > medical organisations that I mentioned in my previous mail can be > found at http://ispub.com/IJMI/6/2/14386 > > I attempted to follow up on that study by surveying the medical > organisations, trying to get their opinion on how much they knew about > the data gathering, and how this fitted in with medical ethics (given > that there was almost no informed consent on the data gathering). I > received a 1% responses rate, so, obviously, could not publish > anything. Apart from normal low response rates to surveys, I would > think that the non-response rate probably had to do with > organisations' closing ranks, or, because it would have been seen as > "IT stuff," would have been forwarded to the IT dept, and they > certainly would not have responded. > > Regards > > Ken > > ------ > > Dr. Ken Masters > Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics > Medical Education Unit > College of Medicine & Health Sciences > Sultan Qaboos University > Sultanate of Oman > E-i-C: The Internet Journal of Medical Education > ____/\\/********\\/\\____ > > > > On 12 February 2014 16:57, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]> >> Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 08:49:37 -0500 >> >> Ken, >> >> No quarrel with anything you have here, but you are looking at this >> from the point of view of the end-user, which is only part of the >> equation. What has caught my attention is that some organizations >> (and I am thinking in particular of universities and university >> presses) may be collecting data without knowing it or at least without >> their staff knowing all the implications. That's how I interpret Eric >> Hellman's earlier comment. I am still investigating this and would >> certainly like to know if anyone can cite instances of tracking and >> data collection by such organizations. >> >> Joe Esposito