Evoting, or electronic voting, is the use of digital devices and platforms to record, transmit, and count votes. Evoting can be used for various purposes in education, such as assessing students’ knowledge, collecting feedback, conducting surveys, and facilitating group work. Evoting can also enhance the interaction and engagement between students and teachers, as well as among students themselves.

However, evoting also involves some ethical and legal issues that need to be considered and addressed by schools and educational institutions. In this blog post, we will explore some of these issues and how Pollbag can help you implement evoting in your educational setting in a responsible and secure way.

Ethical Issues of Evoting in Education

Ethical issues are related to the moral principles and values that guide human behaviour and decision-making. Ethical issues of evoting in education include:

Data protection and privacy: Evoting involves the collection and use of personal data from students and teachers, such as their names, email addresses, grades, opinions, preferences, etc. This data may be sensitive or confidential and may be subject to legal regulations such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) or other relevant laws. Therefore, evoting requires clear policies, guidelines, and safeguards to protect the data from unauthorized access, disclosure, modification, or deletion. Evoting also requires informed consent from the data subjects (students and teachers) about the purpose, scope, duration, and consequences of their participation in evoting activities.

Fairness and accuracy: Evoting aims to provide fair and accurate results that reflect the true opinions or performance of the voters (students and teachers). However, evoting may be affected by various factors that may compromise its fairness and accuracy, such as technical errors, human errors, fraud, manipulation, coercion, or bias. Therefore, evoting requires careful design, implementation, and evaluation to ensure its reliability, validity, and transparency. Evoting also requires mechanisms to verify, audit, or challenge the results in case of disputes or doubts.

Respect and responsibility: Evoting respects the rights and dignity of the voters (students and teachers) by providing them with equal opportunities to express their views and contribute to the educational process. However, evoting also entails some responsibilities for the voters (students and teachers) to use evoting in an appropriate and respectful way. For example, voters should not vote multiple times, vote for others without their consent, vote under pressure or influence, or vote based on false or misleading information. Voters should also respect the opinions and choices of others, even if they disagree with them.

Legal Issues of Evoting in Education

Legal issues are related to the rules and regulations that govern human behaviour and decision-making. Legal issues of evoting in education include:

Constitutional rights: Evoting may affect the constitutional rights of students and teachers in education, such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, or right to education. For example, evoting may allow students and teachers to express their opinions on various topics or issues related to education or society. However, evoting may also limit or restrict their opinions if they are deemed offensive, harmful, or illegal. Therefore, evoting should balance the rights of expression with the rights of protection in education.

Educational laws: Evoting may be subject to various educational laws that regulate the quality and standards of education in different countries or contexts. For example, evoting may be used for assessing students’ knowledge or skills in accordance with the curriculum, grading system, or testing policy. However, evoting may also violate some educational laws if it is used for purposes that are not authorized or approved by the educational authorities, such as political campaigning, commercial advertising, or religious proselytizing. Therefore, evoting should comply with the relevant educational laws in each educational setting.

Contractual obligations: Evoting may involve some contractual obligations between schools or educational institutions and evoting providers or vendors. For example, schools or educational institutions may sign contracts with evoting providers or vendors to use their services or products for evoting activities. However, these contracts may also entail some risks or liabilities for schools or educational institutions if they breach the terms or conditions of the contracts, such as payment terms, service quality, data security, or dispute resolution. Therefore, evoting should follow the contractual obligations in each evoting agreement.

How Pollbag Can Help You with Evoting in Education

Pollbag is an online platform that allows you to create, manage, and participate in online polls and surveys. Pollbag can help you implement evoting in your educational setting in a responsible and secure way by providing you with:

Easy-to-use interface: Pollbag has a user-friendly interface that enables you to create your own polls or surveys in minutes. You can choose from various types of questions (such as multiple choice, rating scale, open-ended) or use templates (such as quizzes) to design your polls or surveys according to your needs. You can also customize your polls or surveys with your own logo or images.

Flexible options: Pollbag gives you flexible options to distribute your polls or surveys to your target audience. You can share your polls or surveys via email or social media platforms (such as Facebook or Twitter), embed them on your website or blog (such as WordPress), or generate QR codes for mobile devices (such as smartphones or tablets). You can also set your own parameters for your polls or surveys (such as start date/time/end date/time/number of responses) to control when/how long/how many people can vote.

Real-time results: Pollbag provides you with real-time results that show you how people are voting on your polls or surveys. You can view the results on your dashboard (such as graphs/charts/tables) or download them in various formats (such as PDF/Excel/CSV) for further analysis or presentation. You can also enable or disable the option to show the results to your voters after they vote.

Secure platform: Pollbag ensures the security and privacy of your data and your voters’ data by using encryption and authentication technologies. Pollbag also complies with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and other relevant laws and regulations regarding data protection and privacy.

If you are interested in using Pollbag for evoting in education, you can sign up for a free account and start creating your own polls or surveys today. You can also contact us for more information or support. We would love to hear from you and help you with your evoting needs.