Data systems are becoming powerful tools to address students' diverse and changing needs, but without comprehensive data privacy policies, the risks of unintentional or malicious disclosures of students' private information is increasing. Given the mounting challenges to protect data privacy, Education Commission of the States assembled data…

The purpose of this paper is to explore privacy issues in online learning. This study shows that there are direct legal-related privacy issues, such as students' personal data and grades protected by the FERPA, and students' right to protect their privacy in the context of a public website. There are also some privacy issues which occurred in much…

Imagine a student using an intelligent tutoring system. A researcher records the correctness and time of each of your attempts at solving a math problem, nothing more. With no names, no birth dates, no connections to the school, you would think it impossible to track the answers back to the class. Yet, class sections have been identified with no…

While the field of educational data mining (EDM) has generated many innovations for improving educational software and student learning, the mining of student data has recently come under a great deal of scrutiny. Many stakeholder groups, including public officials, media outlets, and parents, have voiced concern over the privacy of student data…

Although colleges and universities generally regard the First Amendment as sacred, they often find themselves at the center of controversies concerning the right to say, print, write, or research with freedom. The complex relationships between a college or university and its student media have often contributed to conflicts over First Amendment…

Four major pieces of legislation enacted since 1974--Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (the "Buckley Amendment"), Amendment to the Freedom of Information Act, The National Research Act, and The Privacy Act--represent a broad scope, impacting the administration of research, funding procedures, and the very substance and techniques of…

Reality and the law are forcing us to reexamine the social concepts of privacy as linked to individual rights, and disclosure as an institutional duty. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (Buckley Amendment) establishes the right of parents to have access to their children's school records and to challenge the accuracy and…

This paper examines what exactly an educational record is. The definition of educational record is central to how the provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) are laid out. In order to gain FERPA protection, a document must be considered an educational record. To set context, the paper describes FERPA as an act stating…

In view of the dramatic increase in the numbers of laws and lawsuits since the 1960s, teachers must become aware of the privacy considerations and potential legal problems that may arise when writing a letter of recommendation or giving a verbal reference. They should become familiar with present common law doctrine and recent legislation…

Congress enacted the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in 1974 as a floor amendment to a comprehensive education statute. Until 2002, persons trying to understand and comply with FERPA were without guidance from the Supreme Court, which did not hear a single FERPA case from 1974 to 2001. In its 2001-02 term, however, the Court…

Issues concerning the confidentiality of library-patron records in the age of electronics are explored. Confidentiality of patron records is a relatively new concept for libraries and was first introduced in the 1938 Code of Ethics of the American Library Association (ALA). Librarians have worked on a state-by-state basis to protect library…