Platforms and data protection policy
The edX platform is suitable for ETH courses offered to a global audience. Edx.org may only be used by Innovedum approved MOOCs or courses derived from them. The platform including data storage is located in the USA and is subject to the legislation there. Therefore, neither online examinations nor performance assessments that count towards the final grade may be conducted on external page edx.org. As long as no satisfactory solution for data storage has been found, we strongly recommend following the guidelines in the Rector's MOOC directive, among others:
- Inform your ETH students that their data is located on a server in the U.S. jurisdiction.
- Advise your ETH students to register under a fictitious name.
- Do not force your ETH students to register. For those who do not want to register on the edX platform, offer an alternative on the Swiss MOOC Service or on Moodle.
- ETH students can of course complete their MOOC with a certificate. However, this certificate does not count towards the final grade.
The external page Swiss MOOC Service (SMS) is a service that emerged from a external page swissuniversities project of various Swiss universities. The service is offered in Switzerland, and all data processing and storage takes place in Switzerland. Technically, the SMS is based on external page Open edX and is located in external page SWITCH's IT infrastructure. The courses offered are accessible to all participants with a SwitchAAI account or an EduID. Thus, globally available MOOCs as well as local blended courses can be offered on SMS.
Performance assessments that count towards the final grade can be conducted on the SMS platform, but not online examinations.
The Swiss MOOC Service is suitable for:
- Backup of courses located on edx.org.
- alternative course environment for students who do not wish to register on edx.org.
- online courses with a mixed audience of ETH students and ETH-external participants.
- blended courses with ETH students.
Moodle is the course platform for ETH-internal, i.e. curricular integrated courses (blended courses and online courses). Performance assessments that count towards the final grade can be carried out on the course Moodle, but not online examinations. The latter take place on the examination Moodle, in consultation with the Service Online Prüfen LET and the educational developers of the relevant department.
