Digication co-founders, Jeff Yan and Kelly Driscoll attended the annual AAC&U (Association of American Colleges and Universities) in Washington, D.C, Jan.17-20th.  The event started with a pre-conference symposium titled, “The Search for VALUE: Innovation, Economic Uncertainty, and E-Portfolio Assessment”.  In this day long symposium participants contributed to the national dialogue about the need for high quality measurement of student learning through multiple expert assessments of the quality of student work rather than standardized testing.  They explored in depth the potential of e-portfolios as well as the barriers to their widespread adoption.

Nearly 2,000 participants gathered together last week at AAC&U’s annual meeting, The Wit, The Will,…and the Wallet to learn, debate, and discuss how to maintain quality in undergraduate education even in the midst of challenging economic times.

Yan and Driscoll met many thought leaders from educational institutions across the country and were thrilled at the discussions that took place centered on experiential learning and reflective learning.

Digication is now preparing of the upcoming AAC&U Conference in Seattle February 18-20.  This Network for Academic Renewal Conference is titled “General Education and Assessment: Maintaining Momentum, Achieving New Priorities.”

We will be posting more information about this conference soon.  Hope to see you there!

As our customers know, Digication takes users’ rights to their own content very seriously.  Based on your feedback we have updated the Digication Terms of Use.

Below is a summary of changes:
- The overall language has been made more consistent.
- The “User Content” section has been made clearer.

Digication has always believed that users should solely own all of their content.  Digication only requires necessary rights in order to perform hosting and distribution functions according to each users’ settings.  The previous legal language found in the Digication Terms of Use, has always been there to support these beliefs but the language was rather confusing especially for those who are LSL (legalese as second language).

The most significant update is in “Section 6. User Content”. We have now made it more clear:

The new language is as follows:
“You will grant Digication all necessary rights to store, display and distribute (but not to sell) your User Content in accordance with your an your Subscriber’s (if your use of Digication is in connection with a Subscriber) instructions and permissions in the course of our operation of Digication, by posting your User Content on Digication. We also have the right to utilize data capture, syndication and analysis tools, and other similar tools, to extract, compile, synthesize, and analyze data or information concerning access and use of Digication (but not User Content) by you and other Users. We solely own the results of such extractions, compilations, syntheses and analyses, may use them for any lawful business purpose without accounting to you or any other User, and may distribute them without accounting to you or any other User as long as no User Content or other personally identifiable information is revealed and the information is reported only in aggregated form.”

The previous language:
“By posting your User Content on Digication, you grant us, a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free and sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise the copyright, publicity and database rights you have in your User Content, in any media now or in the future, in order for us to store, display and distribute your User Content in accordance with your and your Subscriber’s (if your use of Digication is in connection with a Subscriber) instructions and permissions in the course of our operation of Digication. We also have the right to utilize data capture, syndication and analysis tools, and other similar tools, to extract, compile, synthesize, and analyze any non-personally identifiable data or information concerning access and use of Digication by you and other Users, not including discussions or User Content. We solely own such information and may use such information for any lawful business purpose without accounting to you or any other User, as long as the information is used only in aggregated form, without specific identification of its source.”

The new Digication Terms of Use can be found at http://campus.digication.com/terms_and_conditions.digi or at the bottom of all Digication pages.

All users who log in on or after 1/4/2010 will also be prompted to re-agree to the updated Digication Terms of Use. Users will only need to agree to it once.

Again, we appreciate all your feedback. Let us know if you have any questions or concerns at support@digication.com.