UK Universities Respond to the GDPR Challenge
London (UK), May 2018 - GDPR is the biggest change in data protection legislation for twenty years, coming into effect on 25 May 2018. Despite this, analyst firm Gartner showed that around half of those affected by the legislation - whether in the EU or outside - will not be in full compliance when the regulations take effect. Schools, colleges, and universities across the UK have responded to the GDPR challenge by designing their own sector-specific GDPR for Higher Education training course.
The University of Exeter and Bath Spa University partnered with Marshall E-Learning Consultancy, a specialist eLearning provider for higher education, on a GDPR course that tackles GDPR compliance specifically for universities.
Marshall E-Learning has created the special GDPR training course for higher education in collaboration with the universities, along with lawyers Shakespeare Martineau, to make sure that the course is both legally compliant, but also uses specific language and scenarios relevant to the higher education sector.
Universities that have commissioned the GDPR training course with Marshall E-Learning so far include University of Warwick, Imperial College London, University of Kent, and University of Durham.
David Marshall, founder of Marshall E-Learning Consultancy, explains why there is need for GDPR training specifically for universities: "Exeter, Durham, Imperial, Warwick, and Bath Spa have all worked together with us on designing this GDPR course that tackles GDPR compliance. They all said that there are specific challenges to the sector around how staff can access and use student data for their research and many more, which include understanding how you can protect and safely use student data, dealing with data from student applications.
"Following this insight from our partners, we have developed tailored higher education scenarios to make the training meaningful to staff in universities beyond the legal technicalities, including specific higher education scenarios. The feedback has been entirely positive, so we hope we can help plenty more universities get GDPR ready before the deadline."
Alan Martin, Head of Data Protection at University of Kent, said, "With data protection being such a complex area, it has been brilliant to be able to roll out Marshall's GDPR updated training. It captures the essential GDPR information that all staff need to engage with, along with the functionality to reference our own resources."
Mark Crabtree, Assistant Director of Human Resources at Durham University, explains the reasons why they chose to work with Marshall E-Learning for their GDPR compliance training: "It is vital, however, that the language used, case studies discussed, and examples given are tailored to fit the university context. Marshall E-Learning understand all these areas and challenges, and it is this that makes their programmes so attractive."
The new GDPR regulations introduce a much greater territorial reach in terms of liable organisations and harsher fines for non-compliance, so universities across the UK are preparing for the introduction of GDPR legislation.
