Note: You are currently viewing documentation for Moodle 2.9. Up-to-date documentation for the latest stable version of Moodle may be available here: FERPA.

"The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.

"FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children's education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level. Students to whom the rights have transferred are "eligible students." 1

Moodle is used in many different contexts. This will affect how you may implement roles and access for your Moodle instance. Some institutions will have very strict requirements. Others may face challenges of multiple contexts for the same instance, such as some public spaces and some instructional spaces that require restricted access.

In general, directory information is considered public. Examples of common items that may be considered "directory" information include: the student's name, address, photograph, telephone number, e-mail address, date and place of birth, major field of study, academic load, participation in officially recognized activities and sports, weight and height of members of athletic teams, dates of attendance, degrees, honors, and awards received, class year in school, and most previous educational agency or institution attended.

Directory information is defined by the institution and this definition is made public knowledge. For example, some institutions include e-mail addresses as directory information, and some do not. The student is allowed to OPT OUT by submitting a written request to the registrar's office (or other appropriate office, depending on the organization of the school). Students who file such a request should not have any of their information published in event programs (such as "meet the athletes" booklets distributed at sporting events) or directories. The student usually must renew this request every semester.

Student's education records are protected. "Student education records" are generally defined as any personally identifiable records about a student or former student, and made, received or maintained by someone acting on behalf of the institution. Common items falling under this category include: student test scores and grades; submissions for assignments, class discussions or recorded comments, or any other materials produced by students in which the student can be identified; and listings of courses in which the student is enrolled. Some of these things are disclosed within the class, to the instructor and course participants, under "need to know". They are not, however, disclosed to individuals outside the class (other instructors, other students, guests). In fact, inviting an on-line guest lecturer and adding them to the course, even temporarily, could cause a privacy violation.

These items clearly relate to the way Moodle is typically used to facilitate learning.


Here are a list of identified problems and possible solutions:

1) OPT OUT of profile info: there is no way for us to check "hide profile" for an individual student. Could we somehow add a field (that is accessible for those folks using batch enrolling techniques, from uploadusers to LDAP) that would selectively disable profile information for an individual student? I am checking on what roles should not have access to this information.

2) Gradebook single student view: If a student comes to your office and wants to talk about grades, the gradebook view requires some clicking to get to the single student view. It is possible to view other student's grades as the instructor struggles to get to the right screen. Would it be possible to trigger "full class view" or "single student view" earlier in the process?

3) Assignment and Quiz single student view: A similar situation exists with assignments and quizzes. If a students asks me if I have one of their assigments or quiz results, I click on the assignment or quiz and the list shows the results for every student in my class. I don't think I know of a good way to show the results for a single student, especially if that student's submission has not been graded yet.

What can I do to make my Moodle install compliant with FERPA?

First off, every institution interprets FERPA a little bit differently. Find out what your institution classifies as directory information, and what its disclosure policy is. It may or may not include email address. Most solutions will not be solely Moodle solutions. Usually an institution looks carefully at its practice, and decides how Moodle will fit into this practice in a FERPA-compliant way.

Moodle is designed to allow great interactivity and sharing between users, but this conflicts with strict interpretations of FERPA. If you use 1.8 or higher, you're in luck, because you can edit all user permissions by restricting what screen views each global role can access.

Here are some things you can do when configuring Moodle:

  1. Disable self-authentication.
  2. Require loginforprofiles.
  3. If you allow guest access, edit the guest permissions to prevent view of profiles and participants lists.
  4. Prevent student users from viewing the profiles of others (the profile shows the list of courses a student is in, and thereby discloses non-directory information).
  5. Decide which blocks your institution wants to use, and edit the permissions for your global roles to prevent users from accessing user profiles or enrollment information through those blocks (or disable blocks you are not comfortable allowing instructors to place in a course).

Most faculty will have signed a FERPA form agreeing not to disclose non-directory information. Here are some things your faculty should know:

  1. Files in the files directory in the admin block are accessible to any user enrolled in the course. Non-directory information should not be stored there.
  2. There are screens which show grades for a list of student users--students should not ever view these screens, even casually, for instance, when they come into an instructor's office to discuss something. Most instructors also use student information systems, and understand this practice.

What do I do about students who request holds on directory information?

Faculty should be aware of your institution's policy regarding students with holds on their directory information, and have received instruction about how to properly manage that information in conformance with your institution's practices.

1) The enrollment list for a course shows a list of all user accounts in the Moodle install. If your institution allows faculty to enroll their own students, faculty will see this list, which will include any students with holds on their information. You may want to restrict this activity solely to those with admin accounts.


See also