Talk:FERPA

Note: On the American high schools sites that I administer, we require students to use pseudonyms. This clearly does not address all FERPA issues, but it does add a layer of protection and shows that we are making an honest effort to comply. Or am I mistaken about that? - Art Lader

Art, I think the key here is to consider the difference between directory information, which in Moodle is fairly well limited to the profile, and educational records which are a much different set of information. Then, you have to think about "personally identifiable" and "access control". Using an alias probably is about the best you can do for directory information, short of hiding it altogether. At my institution, everything in the profile is created with neutral terms. And, for example, we will even go so far as to put "not available" (or some such term) now, instead of using the same city for everyone. However, access issues to educational records might be stickier. Moodle does a pretty good job of this with roles, but there are some quirks. If you are member of the course, and you know the URL, could you download another student's assignment? (you could--and you could even if you weren't a member of the course.) If you are a student and have been given charge of a "course", such as a student club, and you enroll fellow students, then can you get to those student's profiles (and figure out other classes they might be enrolled in). I certainly think these issues apply to many electronic systems, not just Moodle, but I am starting to puzzle my way through them. In our case, I will not ever set a student up as a "teacher" of a course except on a separate instance of moodle that we maintain for these very situations. -- atw

Thanks, AT... Frankly, this scares me a bit. I guess I need to tell folks to continue using pseudonyms, to refrain from giving students teacher access and to hide profiles. Am I missing something here? // Oh wait, here it is: "What can I do to make my Moodle install compliant with FERPA?" -- Art