For the Educause Learning Initiative’s annual meeting, I’ve been preparing a workshop about various legal issues to keep in mind when designing assignments for a course. Specifically we’ll look at copyright, Creative Commons, and FERPA.
Most people look at me funny when I mention FERPA. Working at different institutions of higher education, it is always mandated that I know something about FERPA. Usually it’s just that student educational records are private, that they shouldn’t be shared, and that directory information can be shared unless a student opts out. Normally FERPA is seen as the concern of administrative offices that hold what have been traditionally seen as student records (grades, registration dates, etc).
But FERPA actually covers a bit more than that, and it comes down to how ‘educational record’ is defined. According to the Department of Education, “Education records are currently defined as records that are directly related to a ‘student‘ and maintained by an ’educational agency or institution‘ or by a party acting for the agency or institution.”
This goes beyond grades and dates of attendance. It can include anything submitted by the student to an agent acting on behalf of the institution in the course of their academic endeavors. So yes, this would include an assignment submitted to a faculty member for a course.
Now, I know most faculty members wouldn’t go about giving access to student submissions to anyone who asked, but there tends to be a gray area that can straddle the line of allowable or not.
Scenario: you want to use some Web 2.0 technology in your course, so you have each student create a blog on Blogger to have them chronicle their work and thoughts through the term. As an instructor, you visit these sites and leave comments on the blog. In order for you to keep track of which student has which blog, you ask them to have their names on the front page of their blog and for them to e-mail you the URL so that you can go through them all, moving from one blog to the next. No grades are shared via the blog, and your final evaluation for the student comes in feedback that you provide within the Gradebook area of Blackboard.
Is this a violation of FERPA?
Please discuss. I have my own interpretation and viewpoint on this—I want to know yours.
Working in Higher Education and being an online student I can relate to both sides of the fence on this one. The emerging trends and styles being used by instructional designers is certainly enhanced by a Web 2.0 environment; it lends a hands on experience to the student, while in a public forum able to receive feedback from not just the professor, but from classmates and other bloggers as well. Some people are very private and prefer to keep feedback and/or criticism to themselves, and they may become embarrassed if their professors comments are not as positive as they may have hoped. To some this could be seen as a violation of privacy and in that FERPA. While on the other hand as illustrated in your scenario no grades are publicly posted, and the final evaluation is not done via blog comments – technically crossing no lines drawn by FERPA. I think that this type of situation is one that will need to be watched and have careful attention paid to it by ensuring that learning via Web 2.0 does not cross that line.
I can see pros and cons with the scenario you just described. As a current student required to maintain a blog site for class, there is some hesitancy to do so since my employers are able to see a public forum and possibly form opinions about me based on the postings. In many hiring processes today, employers do an internet search of the applicants name. If the blog appears in search engines and the employer reads the postings, they typically form an opinion about that specific candidate. What happens if the employer disagrees with a theory presented or well researched and supported opinion of the author? They won’t hire the applicant. You may be thinking that this really doesn’t happen, or a blog related to school won’t affect prospective employment. But it does happen according to recruiters and job placement specialists I have spoken with. To me, the posting of personal information such as a name or listing an email address on a required blog is a violation of FERPA.
However, there are benefits to maintaining a blog such as interacting with others in the community and learning new technology. Is there a way to have a blog without a violation of FERPA? I think there is. By allowing students to use whatever name or alias they want on their blog is one method for complying with FERPA. Maintaining a blog that requires membership or invitations to read and not making it open to the public is another method. There may be other methods as well which prevent the blogger’s identity from being known, or hosting the blog on a private site.
Hello, Joann.
I find your discussion on FERPA and Web 2.0 classroom to be quite thought-provoking.
I am currently taking a Learning Theories and Instruction course as a part of my MS in Instructional Design and Technology program at Walden University. Our professor has had each of us create a blog, so that we can experience being a part of a professional learning community. Just as your scenario describes, our professor has our URLs, so that he can go to each blog, and our grades are managed through the Gradebook area.
When I read the directions for this assignment, and even as I was creating my own blog, it never occurred to me that there could potentially be any violation of my education records as a result. Certainly, when creating a blog, there are the options for either restricting who can view the blog or keeping it open to all readers.
In the instance of a professor leaving comments on the blog, if these comments are instructive and/or evaluative, I think that there may be the potential risk for a FERPA violation risk. I would suggest that, to safeguard against such an event, the professor’s assignment would need to be specific about setting up the blog with the viewing restrictions if the intention is to be able to make instructive/evaluative comments directly on the blog.
I believe that most people recognize that when they post anything to an online environment that it is in a “public domain.” As such, I do not believe that there is an implicit expectation for being able to maintain privacy of the materials submitted. However, your discussion brings to our awareness the need to be cautious about the parameters of such usage.
As a future instructional designer that will be utilizing the Web 2.0 tools in the 21st century pedagogy, I appreciate your bringing this concern to our attention. By doing so, the learning community can establish some guidelines to proactively address these issues in order to protect the privacy of all learners.
I look forward to reading your own interpretation and viewpoint on this matter.
Best regards!
I have worked in several higher education institutions over the past few years, so I have become familiar with the FERPA laws. I am also a student studying instructional design and technology. I can relate to the scenario above. In my current class, all of the students were required to create a blog to maintain during the course. We were required to share the link to our blog to everyone in our assigned group. I believe since no grades are actually posted or shared among students, then this scenario would not be a violation of any FERPA laws. FERPA maintains certain pieces of information can be released to a third party at the permission of the student (i.e. name, dates of attendance). However, since the blogs only contain the names of the students, and no other identifying information, then the blogs should be safe. Also, it is ultimately up to the student how much information he or she wants to share, with the exception of the grade received on a particular assignment or course.
Great scenario!
Sincerely,
Jackie Pelegrin
M.S. Instructional Design & Technology Student
In addition to the student information being public or not, there may also be concern over “educational record” storage and back-up. At my current and past institutions, we preserved/locked Blackboard and Moodle courses at the end of each semester (which include access info, discussion posts, quiz attempts, submitted papers, grades) for 5+ years as a record. These “snapshots” could later be used in grade disputes. If one were to use Blogger (or other systems outside the direct management of the institution), how can the “educational record” be archived and protected from student deletion? Seems like a daunting (if not impossible) task…