School Data Rooms Are Not the Answer to FERPA Compliance

The school data room has been a well-loved tool to display and review the progress of students for many years. They typically consist of charts and white boards which display academic data for teachers to look at. The concept is to enable teacher teams and administrative staff to easily examine and discuss student performance in a more collaborative manner.

The issue with these displays however it is that they could violate FERPA guidelines. These data spaces could be used to shame students in front of their peers or to humiliate them publicly. This is something that should not be happening in schools.

It’s also a challenge for teachers to keep track of students’ progress on these types of wall-mounted data, particularly when there are multiple classes http://www.dataroomdata.com/data-room-due-diligence-technological-advanced-solution/ and grades being monitored. It’s much easier for teachers to work through complex issues in an online platform that allows them to filter and drill down on individual assignments, trends, classes, dates and student groups or cohorts.

A digital application will usually include an annotation tool that permits users to write personal notes on any document stored within it. This is an excellent feature for keeping track of tasks, Q&A threads and document uploads. It would be wonderful for the solution to provide granular permissions for documents, folders and tasks according to roles, document and folder levels or activity.

It is crucial that schools find tools that allow them review and discuss data in a more collaborative manner. Schools can make a smart choice by choosing a digital solution that comes with the right combination of features that meet the needs of educators.