Data governance in education: Safeguarding the future of learning with Google Workspace for Education

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions around the world were forced to rapidly adapt to hybrid learning models, integrating digital classroom tools into their daily operations. Today, plenty of the technologies and tools first introduced during COVID have become essential elements of learning worldwide.  

During this transition, Google Workspace for Education has emerged as a key platform, offering a suite of productivity and collaboration tools specifically designed for academic settings. But with increasing reliance on digital platforms like these comes an increased need for robust data governance practices to keep sensitive information secure.

Keep reading to better understand the importance of data governance for educational organizations using Google Workspace, and find actionable tips on implementing strategies that address barriers to effective data governance.  

The growing importance of data governance in education

As schools and universities rapidly move to digitize their operations, many institutes find themselves holding – and being required to protect – vast amounts of data, without existing processes in place to manage it effectively.

From student personal data to academic records, financial information to research data, educational institutions have become custodians of a wealth of personal data at record pace. Thanks to these new data responsibilities, data governance has become a key administrative priority for organizations across the education sector.  

Several high-profile data breaches have occurred over the past several years, further underscoring the urgency and importance of keeping this type of data secure.  

• Georgia Tech: One of the country’s top engineering schools, Georgia Tech fell victim to a cyber attack that exposed more than 1.3 million people’s data in 2019. Threat actors infiltrated a central database and accessed personal details about faculty members, students, staff, and applicants. Attackers reportedly broke into internal systems via a university web application, stealing information that included names, addresses, social security numbers, birth dates, and more.  

• Australian National University: An issue not unique to the Nothern hemisphere;, one of Australia’s most well regarded universities fell victim to a similar attack in 2019. Hackers were able to access a database that held 19 years worth of records via targeted ‘spear phishing’ attacks sent in emails to university staff members. Although the phishing email was never opened – only previewed – it provided ample opportunity for hackers to break into the university’s outdated computer network.

Incidents like these – and the countless others not covered here – serve as a stark reminder of the consequences of inadequate data protection for educational institutions.

Data governance challenges for educational institutions

While it may be easy to identify the need for robust data governance, implementing an effective program comes with its own set of challenges. For most educational organizations, these challenges fall into a few different buckets:  

1. Data management issues

Educational institutes inherently carry data risk, thanks to the daunting responsibility of handling large volumes of student data, being fed from a wide array of sources, for a wide array of purposes. Managing data at this scale is challenging even for the most well-prepared organization, so it’s no mystery why schools and universities – whose priorities don’t often center around data security – struggle to keep up.  

Managing data across disparate systems, including Google Workspace, internal HR software, finance and marketing systems, and many others, is a significant undertaking. Without a unified approach to data management, educational institutes struggle to maintain consistency, accuracy and visibility across their data estate, leading to inconsistent, unreliable data handling.  

2. Developing and enforcing robust policies

While recognizing the need for data governance policies is a crucial first step, the real challenge to making these policies effective is their implementation. While policies on paper are nice-to-have, they mean little if they can’t be enforced. Data governance policies need to address data access, management, retention, and disposal processes, all while remaining flexible enough to adapt to real-world useability and ever-evolving regulatory and organizational changes. Striking the right balance is a trick endeavor most institutes have yet to nail down.  

3. Privacy concerns

Topping the list of data governance priorities at any educational institute is the protection of student data, both personal and academic. Given the sensitive nature of this data, institutions need stringent privacy measures to safeguard against unauthorized access or misuse.  

On top of the need to protect student data is the evolving regulatory landscape, adding complexity to the data governance burden for schools and universities. In many parts of the world, educational institutes have specific regulatory obligations to meet regarding their data, including FERPA in the US and GDPR in the EU. Complying with these obligations requires institutes to carefully and effectively manage their full data estate, starting with a comprehensive view of their data inventory.  

The role of explainable AI (XAI) in educational data governance

As AI gains footing in educational spaces (looking at you, Google Gemini, Quillbot, and Grammarly), the concept of ‘explainable AI’ is becoming more crucial.  

Explainable AI (XAI),  as IBM puts it, is “the ability for human users to comprehend and trust the results and output created by machine learning algorithms.” Essentially, it’s the ability to figure out how an AI tool got its answer, based on the data it used to get there.  

Emerging AI tools can significantly increase productivity and efficiency for staff and students alike. But staff members especially must take caution about how they’re using these tools to ensure they aren’t introducing biases or discriminatory practices into their operations.  

To adequately protect themselves and their students, educational institutions must implement policies and procedures governing the use of AI. One of the most important facets of these policies is a requirement that only clean, anonymized data be fed into machine learning systems, ensuring sensitive personal data does not affect AI outcomes – enter: XAI.  

XAI aims to make AI decision-making processes more transparent, a crucial factor in educational settings where algorithmic outcomes can impact student outcomes. With effective data governance practices in place, XAI outcomes are the default, and ensure AI tools can be used to their max potential, without compromising student information.  

How RecordPoint can help streamline data governance for educational institutes

1. Enhance data visibility: With RecordPoint’s unified data management platform, educational institutions have complete visibility over their full data estate, including student, faculty, and administrative data across all systems. With instant integration with all essential platforms, schools and universities can discover, classify, and protect sensitive data within Google's suite of productivity tools, as well as other systems like Microsoft 365 and Workday.

2. Infuse intelligence throughout the data lifecycle: Lean on a trusted data platform infused with AI and ML to help you identify sensitive information, intelligently classify data, and apply retention schedules, instantly.  

3. Mitigate risk with end-to-end governance: Easily adapt retention policies in your file plan to meet changing laws, regulations, or internal policies and proactively mitigate risk and avoid non-compliance penalties.  

4. Retention schedules: Tailor data retention rules to meet compliance requirements, enabling automatic retention or disposal of files, while ensuring compliance, optimizing data storage, and preventing the accidental loss of critical information.  

5. Protect sensitive information against threats: A late 2023 study found that 40.2% of Google Drive files contain sensitive data, potentially exposing organizations to data breaches or cybersecurity threats. Automatically identify and protect sensitive data, such as PII and PCI, that may be hidden within your Google Drives, helping to safeguard your organization.

As educational institutions continue to lean into modernization, their data burdens will only grow. By proactively embracing the need for robust data governance today, these organizations can mitigate the risks of a data breach and protect precious information, all without disrupting the process of using tools they already know and love to help maximize productivity and efficiency.