Social Media Privacy Courses On-Line

The following on-line courses will help you understand social media privacy, digital footprints, and cyber-security techniques that you can employ to protect yourself  in a digital world.

Social Media Monitoring and Privacy Law (38 minutes - Always Open)

Learn to monitor social networks without violating privacy rights in this course on lawful social media surveillance. Just because you CAN monitor conversations on social media, doesn’t make it lawful. If you monitor social media, this course could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars on attorney’s fee and damages. Respect personal privacy rights when you monitor social media conversations and collect meta data. Learn your right to monitor the use of any computers, smartphones and networks you own or sponsor, what the Electronic Communications Privacy Act requires, how the Fair Credit Reporting Act impacts job applicant screening and how to override social media password protection laws and gain access to personal social media and email accounts.


Social Media Privacy Training (31 minutes - Always Open)
Just cause you've shared it, doesn't mean anyone can lawfully read it. Learn to protect your digital privacy rights. Social networks may be the fastest way to relay information, but the byproduct of all that sharing is information that can be used against you in a lawsuit or investigation. Learn how to protect your right to privacy, how to recognize and prevent an intrusion or invasion of privacy, what’s considered a reasonable expectation of privacy, how to determine who lawfully owns a social media account and what types of information others can prevent you from sharing online. Keep the trust of your customers, clients and coworkers. Protect your reputation and your brand by learning how privacy laws apply to online social networking.


Privacy, Reputation, and Identity in a Digital Age (Coursera) (April 23, 2018)

* A two hour course - 2 hours of engagement in one session *

Reputation has long been prized. In its traditional form, people who know something about you use this knowledge to form opinions. Their collective sense of who you are - your reputation - affects how people treat you: it shapes all of your social interactions. In today's world, additional knowledge about you resides in "big data" collected by individuals, organizations, companies, and governments. Increasingly, data about you are being processed by algorithms to draw conclusions: to form something like opinions.  This combination of data and algorithms creates a new digital reputation which increasingly shapes your life, from recommending purchases and suggesting friends to prompting actions based solely on your digital footprint. Who gathers, owns, and controls this data? Where do they get it, and how? How do they use it? Is it shared with people, processed by algorithms, used to construct your choices? What should we think about all of this? In this Teach-Out we will consider questions of privacy, reputation, and identity using a case study approach. Learners will hear from experts and engage in conversation using real-world scenarios across multiple topic areas.


Digital Footprint (Coursera) (Starts April 30, 2018 - 3 Week Course)

As we move around the online world we leave tracks and traces of our activity all the time: social media accounts, tagged images, professional presences, scraps of text, but also many artefacts we don't always realise we are leaving behind, or that others leave about us. 
In this course you will hear from a range of experts and you will have an opportunity to explore and reflect on your own online tracks and traces, to understand why your digital footprint is important. We will introduce you to some of the tools and approaches to effectively manage your online presence (or digital footprint).   The course will focus on the different dimensions of a digital footprint, including developing an effective online presence, managing your privacy, creating opportunities for networking, balancing and managing professional and personal presences (eprofessionalism). By the end of this course (MOOC) you should be equipped to ensure that your digital footprint works for you, whether you want to be more private online, or are looking to create a more effective and impactful presence. 


Introduction to Cyber Security (Starts May 7, 2018 - 8 Week Course)
Our lives depend on online services. Gain essential cyber security knowledge and skills, to help protect your digital life. This online course will help you understand online security and protect your digital life, whether at home or work. Guided by Cory Doctorow, you will learn how to recognize threats that could harm you online and take steps to reduce the chances that they happen to you. The course will frame your online safety in the context of the wider world, introducing concepts like malware, viruses, Trojans, network security, cryptography, identity theft and risk management. The course was supported by the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Programme, is GCHQ Certified Training and IISP accredited.