Introduction: Compliance Is About Responsibility When a vendor says their tool is “used by 10,000 educational institutions,” it sounds safe. So many institutions trust them. It must be compliant. That inference is wrong. A tool being widely used doesn’t make it compliance-ready. It makes it popular. Popularity and compliance are different things. A tool can… Continue reading Compliance Risks of Third-Party Video Tools in Education
Introduction: Why Online Classes Are Now Auditable Systems Five years ago, online classes were often treated as experiments or pilot programs. Internal audits didn’t focus on them much. They were niche, temporary, and informal. That’s changed. Now, institutions offer online classes at scale. They’re part of the academic calendar. They’re integrated with enrollment and grading.… Continue reading How to Prepare Your Online Class System for Internal Audits
Introduction: Access Is a Governance Issue “I’ll just send them the link.” It’s the simplest way to share a meeting. Send a link, people click it, they’re in. For casual meetings, this works fine. For educational institutions, “anyone with the link” is a governance problem masquerading as a feature. An institution that allows “anyone with… Continue reading Access Control in Online Classes: Why Role-Based Entry Matters
Introduction: Why Recording Ownership Matters A faculty member records a class. By the end of the semester, there are 15 recordings. The faculty member wants to use those recordings in a book chapter they’re writing. The institution wants to archive them as institutional assets. A student wants to request the recordings be deleted because they’re… Continue reading Who Owns Class Recordings? A Governance Guide for Universities
Introduction: Data Governance Is an Institutional Duty When something goes wrong in an online class—a recording is accessed by someone who shouldn’t have access, a student’s data is shared outside the institution, an audit discovers that recordings are stored in an unknown location—the conversation that follows is always the same. “How did this happen?” “Who… Continue reading Data Governance in Online Education: What Institutions Are Responsible For
Introduction: Exams Change Everything For most of the academic year, online classes are one tool among many. They’re important, but they’re not critical. Classes can be rescheduled. If a session fails, it can be recorded and replayed. Students have some flexibility. During exams, everything changes. Exams are high-stakes. They’re high-pressure. They’re high-visibility. If an exam… Continue reading Online Classes During Exams: Infrastructure Risks Institutions Must Consider
Introduction: Scale Changes the Rules A live class with 30 students is a different thing than a live class with 300 students. The difference isn’t just bigger. It’s fundamental. Small classes can be flexible, improvised, reactive. Large classes demand precision, structure, and planning. Many universities discover this mid-semester when they run their first large online… Continue reading How Universities Can Run Large Online Classes Without Session Failures
Introduction: The Feature Trap When IT directors evaluate platforms, they read marketing materials full of capability lists. Screen sharing. Breakout rooms. Polls. Reactions. Virtual whiteboards. Live chat. Hand raising. Q&A panels. Recording with transcripts. Automatic captions. Integration with 20+ LMS platforms. AI-powered meeting summaries. Custom backgrounds. Raise hand with rankings. Participant reactions with emoji. It’s… Continue reading Why Stability Matters More Than Features in Live Education Platforms
Introduction: The Reality of Mixed Connectivity When education leaders design online classes, they often assume a baseline: good internet. Stable connection. Reasonable bandwidth. Consistent quality. That baseline doesn’t exist. Some students join from home with fiber. Others join from dorms on overloaded networks. Others join from rural areas where “broadband” is a theoretical concept. Some… Continue reading Designing Online Classes That Work in Low-Bandwidth Environments
Introduction: The Overused Term “Institution-Grade” Every vendor claims their tool is “institution-grade.” It’s become a marketing phrase with no fixed meaning. It sounds professional. It suggests enterprise quality. But when you ask what it actually means, answers vary wildly. Some vendors mean: “It’s not consumer software—we have customer support.” Others mean: “We have encryption and… Continue reading What “Institution-Grade” Really Means for Online Class Infrastructure
