Posting Grades (Protecting Student Information)
Background
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, commonly known as FERPA, is a federal law that protects the privacy of student educational records. As defined by this Act, student educational records include scores and grades assigned to students during the course of the semester.
University policy prohibits the use of social security numbers, or parts of them, from being posted to inform students of grades. The same policy prohibits using University IDs or parts of UIDs. We can email electronic results to you which you can then upload into Canvas, or we can generate individualized student feedback sheets that can be handed out to the students.
When we email documents containing student grades, UIDs, or survey results, we password-protect such files. If you want to receive Opscan results via email, talk to our staff about setting up a password to use for your results. When you set up a password:
- Your password must be at least three characters in length. The password may have any combination of letters and numbers, and is case sensitive.
- Do not use the same password that you are using for your ISU ULID password.
If you have any questions or problems with a password, please contact us.
For a complete description of the Act and related documents, see: the Department of Education website.
To see how FERPA applies to Illinois State, please visit the Registrar's website.
To learn more about FERPA, see the quick FERPA FAQ PDF.
To learn about your options for posting grades, please see: Student Privacy and Posting Grades