The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, known as
FERPA, is a federal law protecting the privacy of education records. Any personally identifiable information that
is linked to a student and makes it possible to identify that student would be
protected under FERPA.
School officials may have access to students’ education
records only in the event of a legitimate
educational interest—i.e. the education record is needed for that official
to meet his/her/their professional responsibilities. An obvious example would be an academic
advisor who requires a student’s education record in order to recommend which
courses the student must take or to counsel the student with respect to
his/her/their academic performance.
School officials who serve on the Academic Assessment
Coordinating Committee and who review assessment findings and supporting
evidence do not have a legitimate educational interest in the education record
of individual students. Representatives from accrediting
agencies who might wish to review assessment reports and findings most
definitely should not have access to student records.
For this reason, when student artifacts are being submitted
as part of the annual goal report or program review, all identifiable
information should be scrubbed from the document. Likewise, if “raw” data are attached as
supporting evidence for an assessment finding, all identifying information
(students’ names, ID numbers) should be removed. This is especially important, because once
the report is published and accessible electronically, it is no longer password
protected.
When assessments are course-embedded, departments should
avoid identifying the faculty associated with the scores or assessment findings
as well. This information may be useful
to a department chair or whoever is coordinating the assessments, but is should
not be for AACC’s consumption.
As we prepare to report on 2019 - 2020 assessment results, keep in mind these ways to protect student privacy and remain in compliance with an important federal regulation.
For further information about FERPA, please visit the
following site: https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/sites/default/files/resource_document/file/SRO_FAQs_2-5-19_0.pdf.
