As a professor, it is one of his duties to let the students know of their grades. Having 200 students is not going to be an easy task to distribute their final grades, given the fact that his students were requesting their final grade in different ways. Dr. Saluki’s plan will ease the hassles of grade distribution among students; however, downside of this plan may result to Federal and/or Academic law and policy violations. On the other hand, without the law and policy being regarded, Dr. Saluki’s plan will be easy, fast, organized, and effective way to distribute his student’s final grade, yet it will be a centralized way of knowing whether a student passed the psychology class.
Assigning Numbers to Students as an Identifier
There are no prohibitions against assigning a unique number to students that will serve as a unique identifier that will be used in posting their grades. The majority of the students may agree that use of any personal information like social security or student number may expose their identity then most probably they will safe keep the numbers that Dr. Saluki will assign. In addition, assigning these numbers to students will not violate a law as this is just for the purpose of posting grades and as long as the number is known only to Dr. Saluki and his student. Based on the FERPA or Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (2011), Dr. Saluki’s plan of assigning a unique number to his students is not a violation as long as he will not use the student’s directory information such as name, physical and e-mail addresses, photograph, phone number, place and date of birth, and everything that includes in student’s school record (FERPA, 2011).
Family Education Rights and Privacy Act and its Guidelines
The FERPA regulation is the governing law that protects the students against personal information violations. To apply this law, the Virginia University released the FERPA information to let the students and parents aware of this regulation. As the published print asserts, any information or school record that directly identifies the student should not be disclosed without the knowledge and consent. Student’s consent may not be required when the disclosure is for legitimate school interest, to federal or state government to be used in evaluation compliance, especially to parents of dependent students (Virginia.edu, 2011).
SIU Policy Regarding Student Information Disclosure
A student may refer to SIU’s website to obtain the information about policy when it comes to releasing of student’s information. The URL direct URL for this information is http://policies.siu.edu/other_policies/chapter3/rlseinfo.html. This page shows the definition of terms that a student may refer to know more about the disclosure of student’s information policy. It also shows the information that can be classified as personally identifiable to students.
DR. Saluki’s Law and Policy Complied Plan
Three things that Dr. Saluki can do to comply with accordance to the policy and yet persist with his plan are first, he has to make sure that the identifier that he will assign to his students will not be one of the personally identifiable information, which are listed on the SIU’s policy. He also needs to ensure that his students will safe keep the assigned numbers and not to share it among their classmates. And, last, Dr. Saluki can also have his students to sign a waiver that the numbers being assigned to the students are known only to the student and Dr. Saluki, which will only be used for grade posting and not included as part of their school record.
References
Southern Illinois Unioversity (2013). Release of Student Information and Access to Student Records. Retrieved July 13, 2013, from http://policies.siu.edu/other_policies/chapter3/rlseinfo.html
U.S. Department of Education (2011). The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/for-eligible-students.pdf
