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FERPA: Student Privacy and Posting Grades

Reproduced below are some of the University's policies on posting grades:

"The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, commonly known as FERPA, is a federal law that governs educational records. It grants specific rights to students and regulates how institutions must handle educational records, including grades. The main focus of FERPA is to give students rights to see their records and to protect against disclosures of certain information without the student’s consent or specific legal authorization." (http://www.fs.uiuc.edu/CAM/CAM/x/x-6.html)

Posting Grades

You may not post grades by class roster, even with the names blanked out, or leave papers/tests in a box for students to collect. If you comply with the following guidelines, you may post grades without compromising a student’s privacy rights, or violating the law:

• Do not display student scores or grades publicly in association with names, Social Security Numbers, or other personal identifiers.
• Do ask each student to give you a unique number known only to you and that student.
• Do sort your list in numerical order.
• Do not post a copy of your class roster or Final Grade Collection List, even with the names removed. These lists are in alphabetical order, and displaying them allows viewers of the list to infer students’ identities.
• Do not put papers or lab reports containing student names and grades in publicly accessible places. In particular, do not put papers into a common box where students must go through everyone else’s papers to find their own. Do not pass back papers by circulating an entire set for individuals to pull out their own. No one should have access to the scores or grades of others in the class.

(These policies are taken from the Office of the Provost web site at: http://www.provost.uiuc.edu/resources/Faculty/FERPA_Faculty.pdf)

Technology and FERPA Compliance

Learning Management Systems such as Illinois Compass offer one way to give students convenience of extended access to grades without violating FERPA.

UIUC Information Security Policy

http://www.fs.uiuc.edu/cam/cam/viii/viii-1.2.html