Privacy
Please be aware of the following privacy advice when using Padlet:
- Padlet must not be used to collect, store or share sensitive or personal information or content which may infringe copyright laws. If you are unsure about your padlet content, seek guidance from IMPs.
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When using the university licence, the default privacy setting is ‘School only’, meaning that only university authenticated users can access the padlet. This setting ensures accurate post attribution using students university credentials. It is possible to toggle post author names on/off if anonymous posting is required (this is done on individual padlets, by the padlet owner).
- ‘Teacher’ accounts have the option to share padlets as ‘Secret’, this means external users without university IT credentials can access the padlet and re-share the content. ‘Secret’ padlets have the benefit that they can be shared externally in ad hoc scenarios where this may be needed, however, as they present risks in terms of governing who can access university Padlets, this setting should only be used by exception and with good reason.
- For details on how Padlet handles your data, please refer to the Padlet privacy policy.
Data retention: Assessment and video content
You are responsible for the management, retention and deletion of data within Padlet. Extraction/archiving of your Padlet data is your responsibility, because Padlet is not in scope of centrally managed University data retention policies and procedures. This may impact on your use of the platform, for example:
- Data is not managed by the university therefore if the licence is revoked you will be responsible for extracting content you wish to keep.
- If you wish to use Padlet for assessment purposes, you must not ask students to submit a live padlet board, instead, ask them to export their board as .pdf for upload to Turnitin or Blackboard Assignment submission point. It is your responsibility to ensure students are instructed to do this.
- It is possible to record directly into a padlet, this is suitable for quick, vox-pop style activities but not creation of personal capture (e.g. screencast) recordings: all essential T&L video content must be uploaded to YuJa.
- If you wish to record video or audio directly into a padlet, or require students to do so, you must use the School only share setting and/or invite specific university users as padlet ‘Collaborators’.
Accessibility
All teaching resources must be aligned to university guidance regarding digital accessibility. Therefore, as a minimum, please follow these tips to create padlets that are digitally accessible. If a student experiences digitally accessibility issues when using Padlet, raise a service desk ticket for advice about improving digital accessibility and/or seek advice from the university Disability Advisory Service (DAS) about alternative arrangements.
Moderation of padlets
Moderation of padlets, as with any of your teaching materials and activities, is your responsibility. To assist you, there is a default ‘Auto’ post moderation setting that will flag unacceptable content detected by Padlet’s own monitoring system, ‘Safety Net’. It is recommended to leave this default setting enabled, to help prevent misuse of your padlet, and to ‘freeze’ your padlet once the learning activity has ended.
‘Auto’ moderation is only an aid, it will not automatically block everything related to potentially inappropriate subjects, for example, it will not block any mention of drugs but it will block text that explicitly promotes, advertises, or encourages drug use.
If a post is flagged as inappropriate by ‘Auto’ moderation, it will be blocked and you will receive a notification via email to inform you that the post needs to be approved or rejected. For some subject matter, you might wish to switch post moderation to ‘Manual’ or ‘None’. For more information about content moderation, available settings and the languages detected, see Padlet guidance: Content Moderation
Guide last updated on January 25, 2023
