[Infowarrior] - Universities move to hide work from U.S. Eyes

[Richard Forno]

Universities move to hide work from U.S. eyes

CAROLINE ALPHONSO

>From Saturday's Globe and Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061111.wxuniversities11
/BNStory/National/home

Concerned about the U.S. government's prying eyes, a number of Canadian
universities are changing the way their professors and students conduct
online research.

Many university libraries subscribe to RefWorks, a popular U.S.-based
Internet tool that allows academics and students to create personal accounts
and store research information, as well as generate citations and
bibliographies.

But the Patriot Act ‹ which grew out of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and
which potentially allows U.S. authorities to sweep through databases such as
RefWorks ‹ has prompted Canadian postsecondary institutions to abandon the
American server for one housed at the University of Toronto.

³There is certainly concern within Canadian university libraries. It's a
concern about a foreign country having access to your personal information
without good cause,² said William Maes, librarian at Dalhousie University in
Halifax. ³That's the devious thing of the Patriot Act, they can do this
without letting anybody know.²

With RefWorks, professors and students set up personal accounts on the U.S.
database and can then save journal titles for their research records. Amid
heightened fears about terrorist activities, Canadian university officials
worry that if the research is of a sensitive nature, it could be
misunderstood.

For example, an academic researching North Korea or nuclear weapons could
find the work flagged by the Bush government, university librarians fear. As
a result, Dalhousie, Memorial University of Newfoundland and the University
of Alberta are among the institutions that have switched to the Canadian
server.

The hope is that data on a Canadian server will be protected from the
Patriot Act, which gives authorities virtually unlimited investigative
powers.

Mr. Maes said it is still possible for the RCMP and CSIS to probe the
Ontario server, but in Canada there is at least judicial oversight.

Mr. Maes said the Halifax-based university has been using RefWorks for two
years now, but strengthened privacy legislation in Nova Scotia coupled with
the Patriot Act drove Dalhousie, as well as other Atlantic institutions, to
move to the Ontario server this academic year.

Universities still have access to RefWorks, but now the personal information
of professors and students is stored in Ontario. The U of T server, managed
on behalf of the Ontario Council of University Libraries, was created four
years ago to give the province's institutions more control over how research
information is managed.

Universities pay RefWorks for the site licences, and then pay a small fee to
U of T to offset the costs of using the server.

³It made more sense that if it's Canadian academic work, it should be housed
on a Canadian academic server,² said John Teskey, director of libraries at
the University of New Brunswick.

Karen Adams, library director at the University of Alberta, said her
institution switched over to the Ontario server this past month after using
RefWorks for several years. The reason: ³We have strong privacy legislation
here in Alberta, and the U.S. Patriot Act was just another angle that caused
us to realize the importance of it all [protecting users].²

RefWorks president Colleen Stempien said that while she understands the
concerns of some Canadian universities, the company goes to great lengths to
protect the data of its customers.

Ms. Stempien said the company's lawyers are looking at what powers the U.S.
government has under the Patriot Act.

She said RefWorks didn't have a problem when Canadian universities requested
to switch servers.

³If our customers are concerned about it, we want our customers to be
comfortable,² she said. ³Since there was an opportunity to host it somewhere
where they felt more comfortable there was no reason to say no.²

Indeed, some researchers at Memorial refused to sign on to RefWorks until
the switch took place, said Karen Lippold, head of the university's
information-services division.

The university signed on to RefWorks over the summer, and moved to the
Canadian server last month. There are about 300 faculty and students at
Memorial using the service.

³We had some people who didn't seem to think it was an issue. We had some
people who felt it was an issue and were holding off and weren't going to
establish an account until it moved,² Ms. Lippold said. ³We're pleased that
it is now in Canada.²

While some universities have already made the switchover fearing the scope
of the Patriot Act, others outside Ontario are still considering the move.

Michelle Lamberson, director of the office of learning technology at the
University of British Columbia, said that users at the institution receive a
warning that their information is being stored in the United States when
they log into RefWorks. UBC is looking at switching over to the
Ontario-based server to make sure private information is kept safe, she
said.