Privacy Preserving in eLearning Environment (Case of Modeling Hippocratic Database Structure)

The number and size of different kinds of electronic files (text, pictures and videos) incorporated into eLearning environments were dramatically increased during the last ten years and this triggered a development of new web based systems for that specific environment. These systems were developed to satisfy current and specific users' needs which lead to appearance of very heterogeneous environments without interoperability of their services. eLearning system security management, privacy and access control are currently attracting very much attention due to the latest trends in education systems development and attempts to create an electronic file of a student in order to enable the mobility of studying. Access control should prevent unauthorized access to shared resources. Meeting such a requirement in eLearning systems is very complex since it is necessary to protect the content, services and personal data not only from the external users of a system, but also from the development and administrative internal users of a system. Solution for the above mentioned problems can be found in application of the „Hippocratic Databases – HDB concept". The idea is inspired by the basic principles of Hippocratic Oath to be applied on the databases in order to provide data privacy and confidentiality to be one of the most important elements in information system design. Implementation and advantages of this concept have been researched for the needs of business intelligence systems and health information systems, but not of eLearning systems.This paper considers possibilities for development and implementation of HDB in eLearning systems and its sections (LMS- Learning Management System and CMS-Content Management System) by applying W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) requirements and standards. HDB model structure and specific features for the needs of a specific eLearning environment are presented in the paper.