Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974, students have the right to inspect and review most education records maintained about them by the University of Wisconsin-Madison; universities are also required to keep student educational records confidential from third parties absent a written consent signed by the student in question.  Ten categories of information (known as "directory information") are considered public unless a student asks that some or all of that information be withheld.  The Office of the Registrar, in its capacity as the official custodian of student records, provides information about FERPA compliance as it pertains to students, faculty, and staff (see http://registrar.wisc.edu/ferpa/).  

No one outside the University shall have access to, nor will the contents of students' education records be disclosed without the written consent of the students except as provided by the Act.

Exceptions provided in the Act include:

1. personnel within the institution who have a legitimate educational interest in the records,
2. officials of other institutions in which students seek to enroll or are enrolled,
3. persons or organizations providing student financial aid; accrediting agencies carrying out their accreditation function,
4. persons in compliance with lawfully issued subpoenas and judicial orders and
5. persons in an emergency when necessary to protect the health or safety of students or other persons.

TO: Academic Deans

FROM: John C. Dowling, Senior University Legal Counsel

RE: Posting grades under FERPA

It has come to my attention that many departments and/or faculty members across campus maintain a practice of posting grades, on bulletin boards or via web pages, using Social Security numbers, student identification numbers, or some portion of either one. I recommend that all departments and faculty members immediately cease this practice. 

The U.S. Department of Education's Family Policy Compliance Office has ruled that such a practice is in violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), even if just a portion of the Social Security number or official student identification number is used. Social Security numbers, official student identification numbers and any portions thereof are, by definition, "personally identifiable information" under FERPA and may not be disclosed without the written consent of the student. 

FERPA does not prevent a department or faculty member from posting grades of students without written consent when it is not done in a personally identifiable manner. Nothing in FERPA would preclude a department or faculty member from assigning random, individual numbers to students for the purpose of posting grades as long as those numbers are known only to the student and the officials who assigned them.

Please communicate this advice to all academic departments at your earliest convenience. If you have any questions about this matter, please call or e-mail me at any time.

Sharing Directory Information

Given the ease with which lists of student directory information (name, campus address, e-mail address, etc.) can be constructed using queries put to the UW-Madison Data Warehouse, it is possible for departments or faculty members to distribute contact  lists to members of a course, a cohort of majors, students studying with individual professors, or who share an interest on a given subject.  People who develop such lists should be sensitive to the "FERPA flag" indicator in the student's directory information record: the preference of students who DO NOT WISH to have their personal information shared is indicated by a "Y" in the FERPA indicator field.  Unless these students provide explicit permission for their information to be included in such lists, they should be omitted from any published contact lists.  

For a full list of what constitutes directory information, please refer to the Registrar's website,  http://registrar.wisc.edu/ferpa/faculty/directory_info.php.