3.3 - Federal DE-related Regulations: Privacy/FERPA, Copyright, Tracking Attendance

FERPA: Student Privacy

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) protects the privacy of student education records. MiraCosta has a website dedicated to explaining FERPA Links to an external site. and its implications for faculty, staff, students, and parents. You are encouraged to review it if you have not previously done so.

Protected records include information such as class enrollment/schedule, student gender and ethnicity, and student grades. Even directory information (information which may be publicly disclosed) such as student names and email addresses can be requested by an individual student to be kept private.

Therefore, all instructors, but especially instructors of DE classes which include significant online activity, must be especially conscientious of issues such as the following:

• Adding "visitors" to your online class. (See Adding Faculty Evaluators, Tutors, SI Leaders, and Community Ed Student to Canvas Classes Links to an external site. and Add a TA or Other MCC Employee to Canvas Links to an external site. to learn how to do this properly.)
• Using third-party technologies not supported by MiraCosta as a required part of your class. (Are you sure they are FERPA-compliant? For tools that may be public-facing such as social media, do you give students the option of using them without using their real name? Don't assume that even commonly used education technologies such as online textbook resources are in compliance - ask and investigate!)
• Using tools other than Canvas to discuss assignment and class grades with students. 

Copyright

MiraCosta AP 3750 Links to an external site. provides guidance in interpreting federal regulations including Title 17 of US Code (Copyright Act) Links to an external site., especially Fair Use provisions for educators, and the TEACH Act Links to an external site., which provides more guidance for educators in the use of copyrighted materials online. MiraCosta AP 3750 Links to an external site. is succinct and instructor-friendly; you are encouraged to review it as the authoritative guidance on this topic at MiraCosta. 

Here are just a few key points and resources regarding copyright and fair use:

• While some copyright matters are black and white, much of it - especially with regard to educational fair use - is gray. Resources like the Emerson College Educational Fair Use Tool Links to an external site. are helpful guides but not clear cut answers.
  • There are four factors for Fair Use of copyrighted material; the two typically most relevant to faculty considering including material in a class are the 3rd, amount of the work used, and the 4th, effect of the use upon the market for the work. See Columbia's 2-page Fair Use Checklist Links to an external site. for a simple tool weighing whether your considered use of material is likely to be considered Fair Use. 
• BYU's Copyright Tutorial Links to an external site. is fun and interactive, and could be useful to share with students if that's important (for example, if your students are publishing projects online that incorporate copyrighted material).
• It's "safer" from a copyright perspective to link to legitimate material on the web than to make your own copy for posting in your course.
• Not everything you may find on the web is "legitimate" - don't assume that textbook copy you discovered online is something you may use without consequence. Linking to pirated material is not only ethically dubious, such material often disappears quickly from the web, breaking the links for your students.
• If you really want to go deep in learning more about this, many large research universities have well-developed websites with comprehensive guidance for faculty about copyright, fair use, and the TEACH act. Columbia's Copyright site Links to an external site. and LSU's TEACH Act site Links to an external site. are just two examples - a little searching will turn up much more.

Tracking Attendance

As a MiraCosta instructor you'll likely hear about "clearing your roster" early in the semester and reporting the "last date of attendance" when a student drops.

It's important to help students get started with a DE class and establish who's attending as soon as possible, both simply to help students get going, and also to allow you to drop those on the roster who aren't participating, opening space for others to be added and start the class without being too far behind. Reporting the last date of attendance of students who withdraw is a requirement of federal financial aid.

Instinctively, many instructors new to online teaching think that a student who logs into Canvas and accesses the class should be given the same credit for attending as a student who comes into a physical classroom. This isn't the case, however. Federal financial aid regulations Links to an external site. (see p. 5-65) state that:

In a distance education context, documenting that a student has logged into an online class is not sufficient, by itself, to demonstrate academic attendance by the student. A school must demonstrate that a student participated in class or was otherwise engaged in an academically related activity, such as by contributing to an online discussion or initiating contact with a faculty member to ask a course-related question.

Examples of acceptable evidence of academic attendance and attendance at an academically-related activity in a distance education program include:

• • • student submission of an academic assignment,
    • student completion of an assessment or exam,
    • student participation in an interactive tutorial, webinar, or other interactive computer-assisted instruction,
    • student participation in a study group, group project, or online discussion that is assigned by the institution,
    • student interaction with the instructor about academic matters, and
    • an email from the student or other documentation showing that the student initiated contact with a faculty member to ask a question about the academic subject studied in the course.

To establish attendance early in the semester, many instructors require participation in an introductory discussion forum or completion of a syllabus quiz within the first few days of class, and drop students who do not participate.

Upon withdrawal of a student, you'll likely use Canvas to determine the last time a student completed an activity such as those listed above - NOT the last time the student simply logged into Canvas and accessed your class. You'll report this information in SURF.

Faculty may also wish to set an attendance policy for their online classes. There is no hard and fast rule about this; however, faculty are encouraged to establish (and provide in their syllabi) a clear policy about this. Policies should be crafted keeping in mind the relevant regulations about what constitutes attendance, regular and substantive interaction requirements, and equity-mindedness (e.g., positive and personal rather than cold and punitive language). Flexibility and compassion are important, as is clarity!

This topic is also closely linked with concerns about fraudulent enrollments, which often are intended to enable collection of financial aid. The advice above can also help detect such students, but sometimes fraud operations will take the extra step of submitting work to the first assignments in a class. However, this work is often nonsensical, and such students should be reported to A&R and/or dropped. Please see the ASCCC article How Student Engagement Can Mitigate Enrollment Fraud Links to an external site. for more ideas related to this issue.