UGC’s Digital Hygiene handbook for higher education institutes: All you need to know about the protocols

— The draft acknowledges that education in the current digital era “requires tech-assisted teaching, learning solutions, and fast-paced innovations”.

— It notes that students and teachers in India now have access to smartphones and remote e-learning and evaluation options, and “virtual classrooms have brought a distinct perspective on the teaching-learning process”.

— The draft points out that crucial characteristics of remote teaching might be detrimental to the school community and stressed that teachers should be concerned about virtual attacks during online class.

— The UGC notes that “it is abundantly clear we live in the Big Data world, where the ‘Right to be Forgotten’ or the ‘Right to be Erased’ is not easy and identity of an individual is disclosed not only privately but on public platforms too”.

— It notes that metadata plays an important role by leaving a digital footprint trail to an individual. “Your likes on social media posts, content watched, web cookies and website visits” is how it explained what constitutes digital footprint.

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Points of vulnerability and solutions

— Major reasons for vulnerability in cyber space listed by the commission include: underestimating the risks and trusting strangers online.

— The handbook lists major crimes to be aware of and lists Dos and Don’ts to counter them: cyber espionage, deep fakes, identity theft, impersonation, misinformation and propaganda, morphing, phishing, social engineering assaults, spoofing and UPI fraud.

— It advises that privacy settings of social media handles be kept “as strict as possible”, especially for ‘public and others’ and cautions about information shared online which “will remain in cyber space and can be misused anytime”.

— It also advises against downloading books and apps from unreliable resources and not sharing financial information online.

— Further for protection, it suggests installing a reliable anti-virus software using a firewall and periodically clearing browsing history and browser cache (used for forms, personal information and app operations).

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Frauds and scams caution

— Noting that employment-related frauds, scams and tricks are on the rise as people look for job opportunities online, the UGC said it has prepared a draft syllabus to create awareness and educate those vulnerable.

— “Scammers offer fake job opportunities to job seekers through various online services claiming to hold positions in recognised companies and this makes it difficult for people to find out if the offer is legitimate or no. The UGC has also prepared a draft syllabus of Cybersecurity Course for undergraduate and post-graduation along with credit scheme,” it said.

— Documents for both the undergraduate and post-graduate courses will be out in public domain “soon, to seek feedback from stakeholders”, the UGC added.

Higher educational institutions prep

— Amid all this, higher educational institutions are required to designate a faculty member as cyber security officer and strive for ISO certification.

— “The institutions should focus on having cyber security protocols in place. Higher educational institutions may consider offering a course on cybersecurity to all the students to create awareness and capacity building for teaching of cybersecurity course should be done," a senior official told PTI.

(With inputs from PTI)