Addressing security, privacy and confidentiality in a mobile teaching and learning assessment system for health and social care students

The ALPS programme and its Mobile Technologies Project has successfully implemented a large scale, 900 user, student assessment system using Windows Mobile PDAs for students across five universities involving 16 health and social care professions. The solution addresses the security needs within the context of the teaching and health and social care environment using a multi-layered approach including social and cultural change management, policy development and the application of several integrated security technologies such as device and data encryption, strong user authentication and physical signatures. A number of key conclusions and recommendations are drawn from the ALPS experience and are presented here which should inform future projects of this nature of best practice.