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Getting started on Yconic

Wiki and Yconic

A wiki platform is an online resource that keeps growing organically – anyone who has access can add, edit or share information, in pretty much any format. Similarly, thanks to the principles of ‘open-source coding’, anyone, anywhere can launch wiki. While wikipedia is the mother of all wikis, thousands of platforms dedicated to specific topics exist. Some are wide open; others are for members only.  

Yconic is a wiki with four overlapping aims:

• Help students and teachers explore four topics that are reshaping society: climate change, the clean energy transition, digitalisation and social justice.
• Encourage students to interact about what they are learning.
• Equip students to communicate about how these topics influence their own lives.  
• Analyse what and how students are learning and sharing information

For the next few months, Yconic will be a closed wiki. Teachers and students at only three schools will have access while the Yconic team keeps working in the background to add more content and support the platform’s use and growth. In 2025, the platform will become public, with students and teachers from around the world joining in.  

As you get started on Yconic, it’s important to understand some basics about being active in the digital world – particularly when it comes to data protection, privacy and consent.

So, let’s get started!

What data will Yconic collect and how?

The moment you start creating a personal profile, Yconic will start collecting data. Some of it will be basic information about your system (i.e. non-personal data). Other data will be more about ‘you’ (i.e. your personal data).

What’s most important is to know that as a User (i.e. a Data Subject), you have the right to control how much and which data you share with Yconic.  

And Yconic is committed to being transparent about what it will collect, how and what it will be used for.

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YouTube might collect personal data. Privacy Policy

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How will Yconic use your data?

Yconic aims to help you learn about how society is changing around you. The data it collects will serve two main purposes: 1) to measure how much you are learning; and 2) to analyse the processes you are using and the interactions you are having.

You might think of Yconic as a platform on which your activities help feed a growing tree of knowledge. In effect, data feeds the tree. And the more data available – thanks to participants consenting to let Yconic collect it – the more the tree will grow.

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Consent

Generally, consent means giving permission. Online, consent means explicitly permitting someone to ‘process’ your personal data – that means to collect, store, share, analyse, etc.

For consent to be valid, the ‘processor’ must do the following:

• explicitly indicate the purpose(s) of processing
• give users the option to accept or reject data processing that is ‘non-essential’ to the purposes of processing.
• provide a mechanism by which users clearly express their consent, usually by ticking a box, typing ‘yes’ or through some other accessibility means.
• explain to users how they can later withdraw consent.

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Data processing

Under European digital regulations, the following operations carried out on personal data – whether performed manually or by automated tools – are considered to be ‘data processing.’

“...collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction of personal data.”

Other countries may have slightly different rules and regulations about what counts as processing.

To measure, Yconic will include a lot of quizzes and short answer content. A way cooler aspect is that Yconic will use artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP) to analyse how you are learning, including how you interact on these topics with other Yconic users.

• Artificial intelligence is, at its core, intelligence exhibited by machines – particularly computer systems to perform human-like cognitive tasks. In its broadest sense, it’s an overarching framework within which computers are programmed to perceive their environment. Computers can learn from it and self-adapt to maximise their chances of achieving the goals that were built into them.

• Machine learning is a sub-field of AI that involves ‘training’ machines to learn from data. ML can recognise patterns and trends in data, and use them to make predictions and decisions. Within Yconic, ML models will also help us in uncovering any hidden topics in the “Discussion” section. .

• Natural language processing is another sub-field of AI that gives computers the ability to analyse elements of human language, in both text and speech formats - even when students will use slang, abbreviations, or varying regional or contextual tones.

Yconic will ‘capture’ text in articles uploaded, in chat rooms and in journals within personal profiles. It can also transform recorded conversations (audio or video recordings of ZOOM meetings, for example) into transcripts to analyse more informal interactions.

Only YOUR active participation on topics and interactions with other users will grow the tree of knowledge. Using safe AI elements, Yconic’s data analysts will uncover cool insights from the collected data - ultimately publishing a research paper to share the findings.

Using Yconic safely

Yconic does not deploy any intrusive technology -- so there is NO spying on your activity on the platform! Additionally, Yconic has designed the way it uses AI, ML and NLP to uphold ethical standards. Our efforts mean that you can safely continue learning on the platform.

But online safety (here or anywhere) is your responsibility, too! So, keep scrolling to learn some important concepts about data, privacy and your digital superpowers.

Personal vs non-personal data

Generally, websites and wikis collect two kinds of data: personal and non-personal. In reality, the line between them is pretty blurry.

Your name, birthdate, age, address (both email and physical), phone number, gender – any information that can be used to identify YOU makes up your personal data.

In contrast, your postal code, your device’s internet protocol (IP) address are a bunch of numbers unique to your location and do not tell much about YOU on their own – it’s non-personal data.

But here’s the cool (or creepy) part; whenever Yconic directs you to use Youtube, Google or Facebook, their features (e.g. ‘Like’) let the digital trackers on those platforms catch your presence. Eventually, the seemingly harmless act of giving a ‘Like’ to something can be linked back to things about YOU: IP address, search history, etc. These trackers can also collect your data passively across devices - from smart devices to web applications. Almost every page you visit is keen to understand your habits and preferences.

Privacy

In the digital age, data are the new gold. Private companies mine it to understand their target markets. Governments use it to develop more effective policy. And a host of other actors are also eager to get their hands on it for various reasons.

Being ‘carefree’ about data can lead to unwanted attention, information overload, invasion of privacy and cyber attacks.

Privacy is like a seatbelt you click on when cruising digital freeways – or backroads. It protects you from unwanted data collection, use and sharing (collectively called processing) of your personal information. It puts you in the driver’s seat in terms of controlling what YOU SHARE and with whom.

Act now

Yconic’s Privacy Policy is your cheat sheet to avoid passive and inadvertent data collection by third parties! Check out YCONIC’s Terms of Service [1] and Privacy policy to know what you are consenting to.

Put your Superpowers into action

• Create strong passwords! Always use a mix of letters, numbers and symbols.

Fig 3: Use combination of alphabets, numbers and special characters

• Use a nickname. Opting for a nickname can be helpful in two ways. Many sites ask you to login with an email address, which is already some personal data. When it is an option, using a nickname (e.g. username or identifier) instead is another way to mask your identity. Once you are registered on a platform (including Yconic), you may also have the option to use a nickname in your personal profile. This allows other users to ‘identify’ your online persona, without actually revealing who ‘you’ are.

Fig 4: Nickname as username and profile name

• Choose an Avatar to avoid facial recognition. Protect yourself against identity misuse and theft by using comic avatar, initials of your name, etc.

Fig 5: Initials of username as avatar/profile picture

• Log out of other platforms when on Yconic. To avoid the pitfalls of digital trackers, sign out of FaceBook, Youtube, etc. when active and clicking links on Yconic.
• Protect your Yconic Watchlist Token. Your Yconic Watchlist contains all the articles and pages you have bookmarked. Using Watchlist, you can monitor changes on those pages. If anyone wrongly gains the access to your Watchlist or you accidentally shared the Watchlist token, you can reset it in the preferences section.

Fig 6: Resetting Watchlist token

• Become a cookie junkie. Cookies are everywhere in the digital world. And every time you ‘Accept’ them, you are giving ‘someone’ the right to place certain digital trackers on your system. Thanks to privacy laws in the EU, you control how much of your story you share. All online players (including Yconic) must give you the choice to accept or reject their trackers – all, some or none. They must also give the option to change your cookies preferences, any time you want.

Fig 7: Choose 'more information' before accepting cookies

Remember, a privacy cookie a day keeps you digitally safe.

• Know your digital rights.

Act now

Test your cookie skills! Here’s a fun way to see how fast you can navigate a wide range of sneaky cookie traps.

Embed: https://cookieconsentspeed.run/ Now that you’re armed with more information, think back to when you signed on to Yconic. Did you click ‘OK’ without knowing ‘More information’? FYI, Yconic uses ONLY essential cookies, so you shouldn’t need to change anything.

The key point is to always be aware of what cookies any site is using to collect data from you.

How is Yconic upholding privacy and data protection?

Globally, governments have gotten VERY serious about their role as digital guardians, acting on behalf of all citizens. Extensive regulations now define how companies – and even governments themselves – need to handle personal data. The strongest and most comprehensive examples include: the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in Europe and the UK; and the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) and the Digital Services Act in the United States. Yconic adheres to the strict rules of the EU GDPR across three key areas:

• Collection: Yconic collects ONLY essential data; it.does not actively collect broader personal data. More importantly, it never shares such data with third parties.
• Security: Yconic uses special coding (encryption) when transferring data among authorised Yconic partners. This keeps data safe from theft or data breach while it’s being transferred. For storage, Yconic uses password-protected devices, folders and cloud systems that only authorised personnel can access.
• Safety: To produce project reports, Yconic will pseudonymise and aggregate the personal data of all students. As a result, no one – except authorised personnel – can ever identify the individual from ‘whom’ it was collected.

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Aggregation

Aggregation refers to the practice of ‘pooling’ collected data such that it hides personal details but can be analysed to find patterns and trends. On Yconic, each student might be asked to answer, “What is the biggest cause of climate change?”

Using aggregated data, Yconic analysts would be able to report that “40% of students said that deforestation is the biggest cause of climate change.” They would not, however, know which students selected this answer.

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Pseudonymisation vs Anonymisation

Pseudonymisation	Anonymisation
This refers to the process of converting personal data into non-personal. It can be done by ‘replacing’ personal details with a code or unique identifier. In the example given above, data analysts would be able to see that ‘User ID002 answered deforestation’.   Authorised personnel would still be able to link the identifier back to a specific user.	This goes a step further, in that it makes personal data irreversibly non-personal. It effectively ‘removes’ personal details so that no one can ever link back to a specific user. All anyone accessing the data would ever know is that “User X answered …”

And empowers users to exercise their data subject rights

Under the EU GDPR, Member States are obliged to implement national laws and establish an entity that citizens can contact or submit complaints to. Known collectively as data protection authorities (DPAs), these entities may have different names from one country to another.

• Bulgaria: Commission for protection of personal data
• Germany: Bundesbeauftragter für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit
• Italy: Garante per la protezione dei dati personali
• Spain: Agencia espanola proteccion datos

Knowing your rights is the key! DPA can help you only when you know what to complain about - what is wrong. Thanks to privacy laws, you have data subject rights.

Act now

Head over to the Data Subject’s Rights section in the YCONIC’s privacy policy and learn how you can take control of your privacy. Yconic has embedded mechanisms that empower all participants to exercise their data subject rights (e.g. by completing and submitting the Data Subject Action Request form) [2].

Now that you have all the 'keys' to protect your privacy and data, explore the Yconic platform to learn about Social justice, Energy transition, Climate change, and Digitalisation.

References