I really enjoyed your post. Thanks.

I also, obviously, have stricter requirements, mostly as an issue of civility rather than case law. I think students don’t want their grades revealed unless it’s a part of the exercise being conducted. For example, right now I am rating the level and type of students’ historical theses as part of them posting on a discussion board, and deliberately letting students see the ratings so they know what’s going on with their own and can compare. Since each homework, from which these theses derived, is not worth a particular points count (homeworks are combined into a portfolio grade, which is private) I think openness is OK. Are these ratings “grades” on record, I wonder?

We do have to keep things to deal with grade grievance procedures, and that’s pretty clear for paper work. It’s not so clear for online work at this point.

Lisa

You make a good point, but on the other hand, because the issue of whether a grade must be kept in a permanent database or secure records room wasn’t necessary to decide the case, it’s dictum and not legally binding precedent–especially since the court specifically said they werent’ deciding the issue.

Just to play devil’s advocate: what if an institution requires faculty to keep course records for some period of time after grades are turned in to the registrar? For example, we’re required to keep graded papers and other ephemera from the semester for three years after the semester ends in case of grade appeals. Wouldn’t those course materials be records “maintained by . . . a person acting [an educational] institution”? Don’t most institutions have grade appeals processes? Is there any kind of requirement to keep individual assignments in case of appeal at your institution?

Don’t get me wrong, I think your interpretation is a better one, but I don’t think it’s at all settled in the case law. Given the risk aversion of many administrators (OMG–we might get sued!) and the generally conservative advice most lawyers tend to give their clients (OMG–you might get sued!), I suspect I’m not alone in having grade disclosure requirements that are stricter than what the Supremes suggested would be acceptable, even though Gonzaga v Doe says that students CAN’T sue for violations of FERPA.

Lisa

It was this:
Even assuming that a grade book is an education record, the score on a student-graded assignment is not “contained therein,” §1232g(b)(1), until the teacher records it. “Maintain” suggests FERPA records will be kept in a file in a school’s record room or on a secure database…

The reason folks interpret this as meaning the final grades only, is that our gradebooks, and the series of grades inside them, are not always kept for very long, even after they are “recorded”. The final grade is the only record the school itself has “maintained”.

In the case of a CMS, my classes are not always on the Moodle installation hosted by the college. Thus the institution’s connection to all but my final grades is even more tenuous. I could see how it might be interpreted differently when the college is doing the hosting and “maintains” everyone’s courses and gradebooks in storage indefinitely.

Unfortunately, as is their way, the Supreme Court’s opinion is not nearly so clean cut. The only issue they decided in the one case to address the point was whether the grade on a paper before it is entered in a teacher’s grade book is covered by FERPA. They specifically refused to decide whether FERPA covered only final grades or also included teacher records of individual assignments:

“For these reasons, even assuming a teacher’s grade book is an education record, the Court of Appeals erred, for in all events the grades on students’ papers would not be covered under FERPA at least until the teacher has collected them and recorded them in his or her grade book. We limit our holding to this narrow point, and do not decide the broader question whether the grades on individual student assignments, once they are turned in to teachers, are protected by the Act.” OWASSO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. No. I-011 v. FALVO, 534 U.S. 426 , 436 (2002)

I don’t use any CMS/LMS gradebook function – I just keep a spreadsheet (the google one does fine, or a desktop one). The second issue, of fair use materials, is where I thought I might end up having to use a CMS/LMS. But then I started using PBWiki, which has quite fine-grained permissions, and I have used it to deliver content to course participants only, much as I would have in Moodle. So for those of us who want to, breaking free of the silo is very possible. Not compulsory, of course. But possible.

We’re not even allowed to give out grades over the phone (you never REALLY know who’s on the other end of the line!) much less over email. The only authorized way to communicate grades at my institution is either in person or through Bb. Of course, we don’t check IDs in class, so maybe in person isn’t sufficiently secure either. . .

Much as I dislike Bb, for my online courses, there’s really no way to get around using it for grades.