While the nature of EClass does not necessitate heavy security and privacy practices, EClass does account for these concerns. For security purposes, EClass interfaces directly with Cal Poly's login system to ensure that only authorized users (presenters and students alike) can access live presentations. Furthermore, EClass receives a student's class list when he or she logs in and can filter available courses and presentations accordingly.
Once students have been authenticated by the Cal Poly system, the main privacy concern is with regard to private layers. EClass handles layer privacy by including an option in the UI that allows a student to change whether a layer is private or public. As long as a layer is marked as private, EClass prevents all users except the owner from viewing that layer. It is important to maintain the ability for students to choose their layers' visibility so that they can make whatever notes they like. If all layers were public, it could potentially restrict what a student is able to write on his or her layers.
As for the rest of content that is made available in an EClass presentation, everything is public and visible to the students and presenter associated with a given class. This includes the forum, the audio/video stream (if the presenter broadcasts one), and the base presentation slides. Privacy is not a concern in these other areas because they are designed to be public within the constraints of a presentation and its authorized users.
The EClass tool aims to be a tool that a wide variety of users will be able to use. The tool has functionalities that are familiar to many users such as a chatroom-like forum, presentation space like powerpoint slides, and drawing tools that mimic various drawing applications. A presenter will be able to interact with the presentation in a similar manner to Microsoft Powerpoint and the students will be able to view a presentation on their screen as well as draw and take notes on top of the lecture slides.
Although the EClass tool is made in a way to be simple for most users, there is a feature that a 'Power' user may only be able to handle. This is when a user is creating a presentation within the EClass tool itself where HTML can be imported to create a presentation. Users that understand how HTML works can take advantage of this feature but the EClass tool also has other ways for creating a presentation that is simpler for other users to use. A user can create a simple presentation with text and images. A user can write the text of the presentation straight into the presentation as well as import images to append to the presentation. The user can then press the 'Slidify' button to organize the presentation into slides. The slides can then be used as the presentation.