New Features for Protecting User Privacy in the Course Review Community

Contents

1. 1. Feature 1: Anonymous Review Submission
2. 2. Feature 2: Reviews Visible Only to Logged-in Student Users
3. 3. Feature 3: Users Can Hide/Unhide Their Reviews
4. 4. Feature 4: Personal Homepage Can Be Set to Visible Only to Self

This content was automatically generated by gpt-4o-mini (No human review). The original post is in Chinese.

Recently, I came across some comments on the Course Review Community regarding the leadership at the Air and Space College asking students to delete negative reviews and discouraging them from posting evaluations of course content. In light of this incident, we realized that the Course Review Community needs to introduce some features to protect user privacy, specifically making it harder to guess the identity of users when they write negative reviews.

What clues might reveal the identity of the student writing a review? For example, a user’s personal homepage can show which courses this student has reviewed (if they previously linked their student ID, it could even show which courses they attended), allowing the school to identify the student by comparing course selection records. Additionally, the content of the review itself, if it includes a lot of personal experiences or information about assignments, could also expose their identity.

Considering these factors, the Course Review Community is launching the following four features to protect user privacy. I will detail these four features in this blog, along with the expected outcomes. Since these new features involve many changes, if you notice any discrepancies between the actual outcomes and our expectations, or if you think some of our changes are unreasonable, or if you have better suggestions, please feel free to contact us via email (service@icourse.club). Thank you!

1. Anonymous review posting
2. Reviews visible only to logged-in student users
3. Users can hide/unhide their own reviews
4. Personal homepage can be set to visible only to oneself

Feature 1: Anonymous Review Submission

1. Anonymous Rules: Reviews submitted anonymously will not display the author’s username and avatar, but will show “Anonymous User” and a default avatar.
2. Personal Homepage: Users can see their anonymous reviews on their personal homepage, marked with an “Anonymous” label, and the total number of reviews will include all reviews; other users cannot see anonymous reviews on personal homepages, and the total number of reviews will display only the number of non-anonymous reviews.
3. Search Function: Anonymous reviews cannot be searched by username, but can be found using other keywords (course name, review content, etc.).
4. Course Ratings: The ratings from anonymous reviews will still be reflected in the course ratings and will be included in the total number of reviews for the course.
5. Leaderboard: Anonymous reviews will participate in the review leaderboard (most liked reviews, longest reviews), with the author listed as an anonymous user. Anonymous reviews will not participate in the user leaderboard (most contributing users) and will not count towards user contributions in the leaderboard.
6. Notification System and Follow Page: If a followed user submits an anonymous review, followers will not receive a notification, nor will it appear on the follow page. If a followed course has other users submit anonymous reviews, followers will receive notifications and it will appear on the follow page, but it will show that an anonymous user submitted the review.
7. Homepage Updates: If a previously published review is changed to anonymous, it will not appear on the homepage. Only if the review content or rating changes will it appear on the homepage.

Feature 2: Reviews Visible Only to Logged-in Student Users

1. Visibility Rules: When selecting the “Visible Only to Logged-in Student Users” option to publish a review, non-logged-in users and teacher users will not be able to see that review. Student users are identified by the registration email suffix of @mail.ustc.edu.cn.
2. Course Page: The review will be marked with a “Visible Only to Logged-in Students” label, and all student users can see it.
3. Personal Homepage: Logged-in student users can see the review on other users’ personal homepages, marked with a “Visible Only to Logged-in Students” label, and the total number of reviews will include all reviews; non-logged-in users and teacher users will not see the review, and the total number of reviews will display only the number of public reviews.
4. Search Function: Non-logged-in users and teacher users cannot search for reviews that are visible only to logged-in students, but logged-in users can find them.
5. Course Ratings: The rating from this review will still be reflected in the course ratings and will be included in the total number of reviews for the course.
6. Leaderboard: Since the leaderboard is public, this review will not participate in the review leaderboard (most liked reviews, longest reviews), but it will count towards the user contribution leaderboard (most contributing users).

Feature 3: Users Can Hide/Unhide Their Reviews

If you have to “delete” your review due to external pressure, you might consider hiding it (and unhide it after graduation), and when you have time, you can modify the review content and publish it again.

1. Users can hide their own reviews, and the hidden reviews are only visible to the author; others, including administrators, cannot see them.
2. Hidden reviews will appear on the personal homepage and course page, but only the author can see them, accompanied by the message “You have hidden this review; the content is only visible to you.”
3. Hidden reviews are similar to unpublished reviews or those in the draft box; they will not contribute to course ratings, will not count towards the total number of course reviews, will not count towards the user’s total review count, will not be displayed on the leaderboard, will not appear on the homepage, and will not show up in search results.
4. Users can unhide their reviews at any time, similar to republishing a review, but it will not appear on the homepage.

Feature 4: Personal Homepage Can Be Set to Visible Only to Self

Users can choose the visibility settings for their personal homepage in account settings, with options for partial hiding and complete hiding.

1. Hide followed users, followed courses, and completed courses: only basic user information and review lists will be retained.
2. Completely hide personal homepage: the personal homepage will directly display “This user’s personal homepage is not public.”

I hope these features can better protect the privacy of student users, allowing them to write course reviews and share course information with more peace of mind.