To support teaching and learning, VU Amsterdam has licensed a number of tools. See this page for a list of these tools. In case you want to use a tool that is not listed this page, then read the following information.
Licensed VU tools, what does that mean?
If a tool is licensed by VU Amsterdam, it means that VU Amstredam has come to agreements with the supplier, including a contract and a data processor agreement that comply with EU privacy regulations (GDPR). These agreements contain all kinds of provisions that prohibit the supplier from using personal data of VU employees and VU students for their own purposes (such as reselling). There are also a variety of security measures in the agreement, i.e. about when employees of the supplier and third parties may view the data in the application (almost never). Additionally, if a tool is licensed, it means that support for this tool is done by the VU IT department or under a contractually agreed way, by the supplier. Also, VU Amsterdam makes a privacy statement (obliged to have by law) in which students can read how VU Amsterdam deals with the privacy aspects of a specific tool.
It is highly recommended to use only tools that are currently licensed by VU Amsterdam. To provide help in choosing a suitable alternative, an overview is made of all the tools that are widely available and the licensed VU tools that you can use as a replacement. Here you can find a list of VU alternatives.Links to an external site.
Be aware: using a tool that is not licensed is risky. Due to the lack of agreements on privacy and security policies, rights and freedoms of students might be violated, and user data could be - for example - sold to third parties. Therefore, using unlicensed tools can cause legal or financial problems for VU Amsterdam. Be aware that you cannot obligate students to work with a non-licensed tool and in case they request, you have to provide a licensed alternative or a different but comparable task/assignment.
If you need help with finding the right licensed alternative, please contact your faculty support person. They can brainstorm with you on the best educational setup without violating privacy or risking security issues. If necessary, they can ask for advice from the VU Centre for Teaching & Learning (VU CTL):onderwijswerkplaats@vu.nl.
+ I want to arrange a license for a new tool
The VU Centre for Teaching and Learning (VU CTL) provides guidance to arrange and experiment with new tools in a pilot form. If you want a new tool to be licensed, the first step will be to check if the tool qualifies for this pilot. Please check these three items to see if the tool qualifies for the pilot:
Check if there are no alternatives. VU Amsterdam has licensed many tools and often certain functionalities can provide a suitable alternative. Please contact your faculty support person to help you check for alternatives and help to align your goals with the functionalities.
Arrange financial resources.
Check for security and privacy settings. First contact your faculty Privacy Champion. Please contact VU CTL to help you with this process.
If these steps are completed, a pilot with the tool can start. In this pilot, VU CTL will help you with:
Arranging a temporary contract
Organising a didactical scenario on how to use the tool in practice
Collect evaluations
Decide on further steps
After a successful pilot, VU CTL will check if there are more faculties interested in the tool. If so, thisLinks to an external site.process will be followed to officially license the tool.
Most educational tools are accessible from a standalone version or dashboard and do not need a Canvas integration. Sometimes a tool provides a possibility to integrate with Canvas (via the LTI standard or dedicated API's). Integrating tools in Canvas takes, however, time and effort of IT. IT has to investigate the added value of integrating the tool, check the security and privacy standards of the integration and facilitate the agreements on the support of the tool. Therefore, integrating the tool in Canvas is only considered when there are multiple faculties interested in using the tool via Canvas. If you want a Canvas integration for the tool, please send a request to VU CTL:onderwijswerkplaats@vu.nl.
+ Request a change of a tool already licensed to the VU
In case you lack a specific feature for a licensed tool, you can submit a request to the expertgroup Teaching & Learning via the process administrator Teaching and Learning of SOZ: s.keijzer@vu.nl