FERPA

FERPA stands for Family Educational Rights and Policy Act. This is a very neat topic since I have recently been learning a lot about the HIPAA law from working in the healthcare industry for the first time. In both cases, it's important to have rights over your personal records, whether they be medical records or educational records. I believe have been a stakeholder of FERPAs as a student with protected educational records. It is a great protection to have. No one should be able to see other students grades besides the student themselves and their parents. 

With technology growing, and educational technology being used more and more in the classroom it is important to ensure teachers are following guidelines and continuing to practice by this federal law.

The University of Missouri provides a great guideline for their educators, as I am sure many other universities do as well. I found the University of Missouri's Faculty Guide to Teaching and Learning with Technology extremely useful to learn some more about the topic since they break it down and really explain all the different aspects. It covers everything one needs to know in regards to planning a technology enhanced course, assessment, copyright laws, and FERPA. It's important to understand these guidelines when they have to do with federal laws and protecting students rights. Educators teaching in online environments have to be really careful with what information they make public. Students can even choose to have their name withdrawn from the class directory if they are not comfortable with their information out there and it is their right to do so. Educators have to respect those rights.

Here is something I found very useful from their Faculty Guide: 

References:

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

http://tech.ed.gov/netp/assessment-measure-what-matters/

http://etatmo.missouri.edu/file/Faculty_Guide.pdf