You put a lot of thought into how to "get [your] products into schools," and you thought Facebook was the right platform to work with?
If you're just using Facebook as a quick marketing plug to get folks interested in your service, that's one thing. Otherwise, you might want to talk to a lawyer and get them to explain FERPA to you, and check your business for compliance.
I work in IT at a small college, and at least as far as we've been told, no college can allow enrollment records to become visible to anyone not enrolled in or teaching a class. That means that even displaying the current course load for a student is considered a privacy breech for which the college is liable.
Of course, there's also the fact that purchasing decisions at most schools are made on 6-10 year schedules. No responsible administrator is going to gamble on putting key academic resources into a system as new and unproven as Facebook. FB (and the whole FB app ecosystem) have a long way to go to convince anyone that they're in it for the long haul.
Absolutely, it's not going to be easy and we are aware of the legal problems with privacy. But yes, the facebook app is just our first product. We are working on off facebook stuff as well.
If you're just using Facebook as a quick marketing plug to get folks interested in your service, that's one thing. Otherwise, you might want to talk to a lawyer and get them to explain FERPA to you, and check your business for compliance.
I work in IT at a small college, and at least as far as we've been told, no college can allow enrollment records to become visible to anyone not enrolled in or teaching a class. That means that even displaying the current course load for a student is considered a privacy breech for which the college is liable.
Of course, there's also the fact that purchasing decisions at most schools are made on 6-10 year schedules. No responsible administrator is going to gamble on putting key academic resources into a system as new and unproven as Facebook. FB (and the whole FB app ecosystem) have a long way to go to convince anyone that they're in it for the long haul.