Do you use graded online discussions in your class? Here’s a few ways to avoid violating FERPA in discussion forums.

by Brenda Thomas

Everybody who works for an educational institution that receives any federal funds needs to understand and abide by FERPA (a.k.a The Buckley Amendment). On August 21, 1974, President Ford signed FERPA into law, which was an amendment sponsored by Senator James Buckley of New York. FERPA addresses two main issues: 1) students’ rights to their education records and 2) institutions’ protection of students’ education re

cords. The focus of this article is on the second issue and considering it in regard to online classroom discussion forums.

If schools or teachers use graded forums, then they need to treat those online discussion assignments with the same privacy considerations they would if they were evaluating and grading assignments in a face-to-face classroom setting.

Discussion forums (or fora, if you prefer) are a staple of many online learning environments so students can interact with each other and their instructor about course topics similar to what might take place in a face-to-face classroom. In order to ensure that students participate in online discussions, institutions or teachers often enact a grading policy requiring a certain quantity and quality of student comments on the forum.

Teachers who abide by FERPA are careful to protect their students’ assignments and their grading of those assignments so they would never post grades or feedback for all in the class to see. Any grade markings or feedback on assignments would remain confidential between the teacher and each student. Therefore, when it comes to graded discussion forum assignments, teachers need to be just as vigilant in protecting those education records as they are with other assignments.

If online forums are used just for discussions about the course content and the postings to those forums are not graded, then the student comments are not under the protection of FERPA and those discussions are treated the same as if they occurred in a face-to-face classroom setting. However, if discussion forum posts are graded assignments, then the situation changes. That does not necessarily mean that it is a violation of FERPA to have graded online discussion forums, but it does mean that teachers need to be cautious in how they assess those discussion assignments. Read the following scenarios and consider how FERPA might apply.

Scenarios

For each of the three scenarios below, the policy is the same: every student uses their real name on the discussion forum and they must post three comments each week in order to receive the full participation points, but posts consisting of comments such as “I agree” or “good point” do not receive credit toward the requirement.

Classroom 1: Student Z posted three comments during the week, one of which contained only the word “great.” The teacher did not post any evaluative replies to any comments and did not make any markings on the discussion forum indicating how comments were evaluated or graded.

Classroom 2: Students A and B each posted three comments during the week and all of them appeared to be substantive, but the instructor replied to one of Student A’s comments with something like “that’s close, but not entirely correct” and responded to one of Student B’s comments with “Well done.” Although grading was not indicated, the teacher did post evaluative feedback for all to see.

Classroom 3: Students X and Y are in a class where the teacher uses a feature built into the LMS (Learning Management System), such as a “like” button or an icon of some sort to mark each post that is deemed to be substantive. Every student in the class can see which comments received those markings and which ones did not. Student X posted three comments and the teacher marked all three as substantive and Student Y posted three comments, but only one of those received the substantive mark.

 

Conclusions

In Classroom 1, anyone in the class who read the comments might guess (though not know for sure) that Student Z did not receive the full participation points for that week. However, the teacher did not make any evaluative replies or grade markings to any of the students’ comments on the discussion forum.

In Classroom 2, the teacher replied to some comments in an evaluative manner. Although no grade markings were visible, everyone could see the instructor’s feedback. They could not know for sure what Students A and B received for a grade, but they could see the instructor’s evaluative feedback for those students’ graded discussion forum assignments.

In Classroom 3, no evaluative feedback was posted, but the teacher clearly marked some posts as substantive and some not. Since all students knew that they needed to post three substantive comments, all they had to do was count the teacher’s markings too see which classmates received full participation points for that week and which ones did not.

The challenge with those three scenarios is that FERPA gives general guidelines, but does not specifically address every possible situation that could arise. The law was enacted in 1974, long before the advent of online education as we know it today. FERPA has been amended since then (the last time being in 2001) to update and clarify some points, but none of those amendments addressed issues specific to online education. Even though FERPA does not mention online education or discussions forums, the law still applies to that learning modality and some schools provide guidance in that regard based on FERPA regulations.

Spalding University’s policy has a specific section titled “FERPA & Online Discussions” in which its instructors are directed to “avoid any references to ‘lost points’ or ‘reduced grade’ in discussion forum posts.” Western Washington University has a FERPA toolkit that says “In online classes, never post grades or evaluative comments . . . in a place on the site where they may be visible to their peers.” Based on those two applications of FERPA, it appears that the Classroom 2 and 3 scenarios could be cause for concern more than Classroom 1.

This EdSurge article discussed some ways that schools could be unintentionally violating FERPA. In addition to what is detailed in that article, schools and teachers should also consider how graded online discussion forums could unintentionally violate FERPA.

The U.S. Department of Education provides resources to help schools and teachers understand and abide by FERPA. Those desiring to take a deeper dive can enroll for free in some short training courses and receive free certificates of completion.

If schools or teachers use graded forums, then they need to treat those online discussion assignments with the same privacy considerations they would if they were evaluating and grading assignments in a face-to-face classroom setting.