Ensuring Course Content is FERPA Compliant in Canvas


     FERPA Compliant in Canvas Courses

How to keep your Canvas courses FERPA compliant in a virtual setting with or without combined sections. 

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA Links to an external site.) protects the privacy of a student's education record, which also includes a student's course schedule.

When course sections are combined into one Canvas course shell, students in one section can see and interact with students in the combined sections. FERPA can be violated when students from one section see other students’ names, content, or images from a different, merged/combined section in a virtual setting. When merging/combining class sections that do not meet together into a single combined Canvas course shell, instructors should take steps to ensure student privacy and FERPA compliance.

Click on the following expanders to see details of how to ensure FERPA compliance in your Canvas course shells. 

Required Course Settings

  • We will be navigating around the course "Settings" page, to learn more about this page and where to find it, follow the link below.
  • There are certain settings that can be changed to ensure students from one section are not able to view, or interact with, students from another section.
  • When sections are combined, this settings need to be set. Follow these steps: 
    • Within course “Settings” scroll to the bottom of the "Course Details" tab and select "More Options".
      This image shows where the "More Options" link is located at the bottom of the course details page.
    • Once you have selected "More Options", a list of check boxes should appear, make sure the highlighted ones in the image below are reflected in your shell.This image shows the options to check and uncheck inside of "More Options".
    • While still in the "Settings" for your course, click on the "Navigation" tab at the top and make sure you disable the following menu items.
      • People
      • Chat
      • Collaborations
      • BigBlueButton (formerly Conferences)
    • Here is a link on how to manage your Course Navigation links. Links to an external site.

Videos: Videos recorded during a live class session cannot be posted for different class sections to view. 

If you make a recording that includes a student's name, likeness, or voice would violate FERPA if it was shared to another section (particularly if the sections are combined in Canvas).

Prerecorded lectures

One of the easiest ways to ensure no student sensitive content is available in a recording is to record lectures without students present. We recommend recording with Kaltura Capture or recording with Zoom and uploading it to Kaltura. 

Record individual sections

If you would like to hold live classes in Zoom, you will need to have a time for each specific Banner section individually. In Zoom, you should name the Zoom with a convention that displays which section is which.

When you schedule and name your Zoom meetings, you should include the section number and the class time in the meeting title. 

Example: If 2 sections of INFO-1010 are combined, your scheduled Zoom meetings could look like this:

    • “MATH-1010 September 9th, Section 01, 10:00am” 
    • “MATH-1010 September 9th, Section 03, 1:00pm” 

If you would like to post the recorded section, it should be posted on something that can specify which section has access to it, such as Assignment, Discussion, or Announcement all have the option to "Assign to" the individual section.

Announcements, Discussions, & Groups:

  • If an Announcement does not have comments activated and does not include a video containing FERPA information then it can be posted once to all sections within a course at the same time. 
  • Discussions always include the “post” and “reply” option, so every discussion post will need to be posted to a specific section. 
  • To post an announcement or discussion to only one section, follow the steps below: 
    • Use the dropdown to select a specific section before saving.
      This is an image of how to post to only one section.
    • Once the announcement and/or discussion is saved, you can make a copy of it by selecting the 3 dots in the upper right corner and choosing “Copy To…”

This is an image of how to copy an announcement or discussion.

    • It can now be copied back into the 2nd section.
    • If you have more than two sections combined together you can continue to copy the announcement/discussion for however many sections are needed.
  • Groups in canvas inherently make the names of all students visible when a group is organized, regardless of section assignment.
        • To make sure groups only show students that are in their respective section, make sure you require group members to be in the same section when creating a group.
    This image depicts the "Require group members to be in the same section" checkbox.

Assignments & Quizzes: 

  • Assignments & Quizzes that are only assigned to a single student (i.e., not group assignments) can be assigned to “All Sections” as long as a video of the class recording is not included in the posted assignment and/or quiz.
    • If you use Peer Review or create Groups, be aware that students cannot be intermingled within different sections. Each group or peer review needs to only include students from the same class section.

Inbox: 

  • A message can be sent to all students if it does not contain any FERPA related information, which includes names, grades, work, audio, video, or image of any student. 
  • To send a message to a specific section of the course follow the steps below: 

    • In the Compose Message screen you will select the combined Canvas course and then it will give you an option to select a single course section through the dropdown menu.

      This is an image of how to only pick one section in Inbox.

    • Once a specific course section is selected it will show on the “To” line.

      This is an image showing only one section is chosen in Inbox.

    • The message can now be sent to only the one specified section.

    • You will also want to make sure you check the box to "Send an individual message to each recipient".

      This image shows where the checkbox for "Send an individual message to each recipient" is located.

Summary

Per the Cross Listing Agreement form, you should now understand the importance of FERPA requirements that should be considered when you request a shell combination or merge.

As a quick refresher of the topics covered in both this page and on the agreement form:

Ensuring Course Content is FERPA Compliant Summary.pdf Download Ensuring Course Content is FERPA Compliant Summary.pdf

Course Settings

  • Make sure that the proper settings have been changed to ensure that students from one combined section won't be able to see students from another combined section.
  • Disable navigation tools inside your course that would otherwise allow students access to other combined sections and students.

Videos

  • Make sure that you are following our guidelines provided above in creating video recordings.
  • Schedule video discussions with specific sections and only allow access to said video/recording to that section.

Announcements, Discussions, & Groups

  • Ensure that Announcements, Discussions, & Groups are setup to be accessed in their own respective sections.
  • Make sure that students are only capable of creating a group within their assigned section.
  • Announcements that allow comments or include a video containing FERPA information are set up to be accessed in their own respective sections.

Assignments & Quizzes

  • Ensure that assignments and quizzes created are assigned to specific sections or students.
  • Remove any video content that may be a FERPA violation or contain protected student information.

Messaging/Inbox

  • Ensure that you are sending e-mails to specific sections and not to all sections, as well as ensuring that you BCC the students in your e-mail before sending out an e-mail to multiple students.

As you can see, making sure that our campus adheres to FERPA regulations is important. Our student's privacy matters, and making sure that we do things the right way the first time will help ensure that we protect our students privacy according to FERPA.