Back in March, the state Board of Higher Education banned the use of TikTok on college and university owned devices.
That — after Gov. Doug Burgum banned the platform from all state-owned devices.
However, the Board did say campuses could use TikTok for recruitment purposes.
Vice-Chancellor Darren King told a Board committee two campuses have asked for a waiver to use TikTok for recruiting. And he proposed a “technical solution” to allow that.
"Probably the most secure way to do this is to use a 'virtual desktop' computer, in Microsoft's on line cloud environment, " King told the Board's Research and Governance Committee. "By using the virtual desktop, TikTok is not running on NDUS-owned equipment, nor is it running on the NDUS network."
King said this is a way to fulfill the intent of the ban on the platform, while allowing those campuses to choose to use it away from the campus.
"It is a good tool to use for recruitment purposes," said the Board's student member, Sadie Hanson. "When we passed the TikTok ban, there were concerns from presidents of smaller institutions, who wanted to use TikTok for student interns as recruitment tools."
The Research and Governance Committee unanimously endorsed it. And the proposal will now be taken up by the full Board.