FERPA Information for Faculty

All university faculty are considered school officials and are required by law to maintain the confidentiality of student records. Any school official who maintains specific records is considered a record custodian. At the University of North Florida, the University Registrar is the official custodian for academic records.

The release of any non-directory information about a student to any person outside the university community or to any university personnel without a legitimate educational interest violates federal and state law, as well as university regulations.

All Enrollment Services employees who work with student records must sign the FERPA Agreement. This document explains that academic records may only be disclosed to or discussed with individuals with legitimate educational interest. Other staff and faculty on campus may be asked to complete the FERPA agreement prior to obtaining authorization to access student information. To complete the agreement, log on to myWings and click on Employee Self-Service. Select the Personal Information tab at the top and click on "FERPA Agreement" in the menu. Carefully review the document and acknowledge your agreement at the bottom.

All UNF offices should consider developing a procedure for handling confidential academic records and ensuring that all staff are educated in these procedures. In addition, we strongly encourage you to require staff to acknowledge their understanding of such protocol in writing.

• Please assign or allow students to choose a unique and confidential identifier (e.g., a 4-digit number). This unique identifier cannot be part of the student's name, UNFID or social security number.
• Grade lists must be posted in random, not alphabetical order.
• Web-based course management systems such as Blackboard can be used to post grades if the system is secured by username and password. For assistance with Blackboard grade posting, please contact CIRT.
• The Office of the University Registrar does not send grades by e-mail because there is no guarantee of confidentiality with electronic transmission.
• You can send grades via fax or by telephone only if you are certain that the student is the one receiving the information. To verify the student's identity, you should confirm personally identifiable information with the student.
• You may also mail students their final grades. Have students provide self-addressed, stamped envelopes. You may not send grade notification using a postcard.

All faculty must utilize reasonable measures to preserve the confidentiality, security and integrity of University of North Florida information systems and the information contained therein. All teaching staff should practice appropriate security measures:

• Never disclose, share or loan your username(s) and password(s) to anyone (e.g., another employee, faculty member, supervisor, student assistant, etc.). Department staff or supervising faculty should obtain individual log-on information for graduate/teaching assistants. Security access for the student records system is available from Enrollment Services
• Never use generic/group IDs when accessing confidential academic record information

In addition, faculty should take reasonable measures to restrict unauthorized persons from viewing confidential academic record information. For example, you should:

• Never leave your computer workstation unattended while signed on without appropriate screen locking (e.g., a password-protected screen saver)
• Never leave personal logon information (e.g., username, password, network mapping, etc.) in view of unauthorized persons
• Never program (or ‘hot-key’) automatic access to confidential academic record systems

You may share graded papers and exams only with the student, with others upon receiving the student's consent or with university officials in performance of official duties. Student papers or exams should not be left outside an office door where students must look through all the papers to find their own; students should not have access to other students' grades. While you may return papers and/or examinations by mail, the safest practice is to return papers personally to the student.

You can circulate an attendance roster, but it should not contain confidential information such as social security number, UNF ID number and/or grades.

It depends. In general, a written release is recommended, not required, for letters sent to other educational institutions to which the student is applying and to professional school admission services. The release is required, however, when the recommendation is sent to an employer or to an individual for another purpose. (A release form is provided for your use; refer to the PDF at top of this page.)

Faculty may include information from personal observation or knowledge without the student's consent, but it is not acceptable for faculty to access a student's record to view grades/information from other classes and terms. If the recommendation will include non-directory/personally identifiable information (grades, GPA, class rank, etc.) obtained from the student’s academic record, you should obtain a signed release from the student. Releases should specify the information that may be disclosed, the identity of the party(ies) to whom the disclosure can be made, the student's signature and the date.

It is recommended for faculty and staff to add this confidentiality statement to their email signature:

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic mail transmission and any documents accompanying it may contain confidential information, protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Please protect the privacy of this information and do not forward this email. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately notify the senderto arrange for the return of the message and any attached documents.

This does not qualify as legitimate educational interest. Faculty cannot review a student’s previous academic history before assigning a final grade.

If you keep attendance records, check with the One Stop Student Services Office to determine whether the parent has provided the student's written consent or appropriate IRS documentation indicating the student's dependency status. If so, you may release the information; if not, refer the parent to the administrative area of One Stop.

You should not discuss the progress or performance of a student with anyone, including parents and other faculty, without the student's consent. Inquiries to faculty regarding previous student performance do not constitute a legitimate educational interest. In this case, you can contact One Stop Students Services to determine if the student has a prior academic honesty violation.

You should not provide anyone with lists of students enrolled in your class(es) for any commercial purpose. Such requests should be forwarded to the University Registrar in Enrollment Services Processing for review and response.