Posting of Student Grades

Joe Glover, Associate Provost

The Office of Management in the U.S. Department of Education has issued a finding that the public posting of student grades using the last four digits of social security numbers or university student identification numbers violates the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Consequently, faculty should not post student grades in this manner.

Several alternative methods to communicate grades to students may be employed, and two are suggested below:

(1) Institute a web-based system that allows students to look- up grades. The system should be secured by Gatorlink username and password. Faculty using Web-CT may consult with Doug Johnson (wanderer@ufl.edu) in the Office of Academic Technology for technical assistance to accomplish this. Faculty using other course management systems should consult with their designated technical support personnel. [Important note: Faculty may not create web sites containing confidential student information that are not encrypted and password- protected.]

(2) Faculty may assign a unique and confidential identifier (such as a four-digit number) to each student for use in a particular course. Faculty may post grades using this identifier provided the posted list is in random, and not alphabetical, order.

(3) Faculty may allow students to choose unique and confidential identifiers, provided the students do not use social security numbers or student identification numbers. Posted lists should be randomly ordered, as in (2).