The Red and Black

Issue date: 10/2/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Photo Illustration By Colin Dunlop [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Photo Illustration By Colin Dunlop [Click to enlarge]

[Click to enlarge]

It's as easy as a click of a mouse.

For University students, keeping one's cell phone number off the Internet doesn't just mean keeping potential stalkers at bay. It can also mean the omission of one's name from a dean's list or commencement program.

When students opt to restrict their University directory information in OASIS, the decision and its implications fall under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law instituted in 1974 that serves to protect "the privacy of student education records," as stated by the U.S. Department of Education.

Otherwise, students' directory information, which includes home address, e-mail and phone number, is listed alongside the student's name in the online and campus directories.

And if a third party - such as an employer, insurance company or parent - requests information on a student who placed a FERPA restriction on their directory information, the University is prohibited from even confirming or denying that student's enrollment.

But most students don't know that, said University Registrar Rebecca Macon.

A plan of action

"We've become more and more aware that students do not understand what that restriction means and we wanted to get word out," said Macon, who's has worked for the Registrar's Office for nearly five years.

This includes a need to educate faculty and staff members who may not fully understand FERPA, and may be encouraging students to activate the restriction, she said.

To start the process, an e-mail was sent from the Registrar's reghelp@uga.edu address on Sept. 17 to all University students who had a FERPA restriction placed on their records.

"I think I just kind of yelled some expletive" upon viewing the e-mail, said Sarah Colombo, a senior advertising major from Rome. "I was scared that something was wrong, I didn't really know what it [the e-mail] was talking about at first because the word 'restriction' just sounded very negative."

Colombo said once she read through the "FERPA Restriction on Your Record" e-mail, she calmed down but did feel the e-mail's tone sought to convince students to reconsider their decision.

"I think the entire message of the e-mail was negative because I felt like it said, 'After considering this, if you still want to have [the restriction], keep in mind you'll have to have written consent for everything you want to send out.'"

Macon said she recognizes the tone of the e-mail and how it appeared.

"A lot of people have interpreted it that way," she said. "We might have a slight [bent] that we were encouraging students to reverse it because they didn't fully understand it."

One of the reasons Colombo decided to activate the FERPA restriction was to prevent the easy accessibility of her cell phone number on the Internet.

"I have gotten various really creepy calls," she said. "I have one person who calls me all the time and plays country music in the background … I don't know how else they would have gotten my cell phone number than through the Internet."

Colombo said she hadn't decided if she would remove her restriction.

"Not being able to figure out what to do in the first place kind of delayed me making a decision," she said.

The Facts about FERPA

Under normal circumstances, the University is required to release a student's directory information to any third party that requests it as per the Georgia Open Records Act.

However, if a FERPA restriction is in place, the only response to such a request would be, "We have no information available on that individual," Macon said.

She stressed that the response had to refer to the person in question as an "individual" rather than a "student" to avoid even implying enrollment at the University.

With the restriction in place, student educational records are given out only if the student submits a signed release, which can not be done through e-mail or over the phone, as they do not meet the requirements for a signature. But because a student's OASIS login is considered signed release, the restriction can be put in place or removed through OASIS, Macon said.

The placement of the restriction is done in OASIS by selecting "Yes" from a drop-down menu. This option appears in "Student Records Main Menu," under "Change Address Information," and in "Registration Main Menu," under "Register or adjust schedule."

Below a gray box, in which the student is prompted to verify the accuracy of his or her local address, a line reads "Please restrict all directory information?" followed by "Yes" or "No," the only options.

"And since it's directly below your address and your phone number you would assume that's all it's applying to," Colombo said.

FERPA itself is not mentioned in OASIS. No context or explanation of implications appears in relation to "Restrict all directory information," although the Registrar has a page devoted to FERPA, and a full explanation of directory information restrictions appear in an OASIS tutorial on the Web site.

FERPA's policies require institutions annually to notify students (and parents of students under 18) of their rights under the regulation, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

"The actual means of notification [special letter, inclusion in a PTA bulletin, student handbook, or newspaper article]," it states, "is left to the discretion of each school."

As of Sept. 24, 1,356 students put the FERPA restriction in place. This is 14.6 percent of students that have the restriction, according to EITS Communication Officer Bert DeSimone.

"I must have clicked 'yes.' I remember thinking it was partially creepy I could find people's cell phone numbers and home addresses and all that stuff" on the University's online directory, said Jessica Lawson, a senior music education major from Kennesaw who received the FERPA e-mail.

But Lawson did not remember placing the restriction on her information and was less surprised than confused by the e-mail, which was intercepted by her mother. Lawson said her mother immediately removed the restriction through OASIS for her.

"I didn't even know it was restricted in the first place," she said. "I don't know what I clicked. I must have clicked 'yes.'"

Lawson said the restriction had created complications in dealing with her family's insurance company.

"We've had issues where they honestly didn't think I was in college and we've had to send transcripts," she said. "It was mostly something to do with getting transcripts more easily and that restriction was like making it so my mom couldn't just request for a transcript to be sent."

But do most students know what clicking "yes" entails?

"We're convinced they don't," Macon said. "And since we've sent out that e-mail we've responded to literally hundreds of students who received it who said they had no idea what it entailed."

"People get angry at [The Office of the Registrar] and they get frustrated and concerned with what might be going on with their records," Macon said. "So it's an unpleasant situation from all sides."

All or nothing

Students who place FERPA restrictions on their educational records often do so unknowingly, when all that they desired was restricting information such as their cell phone or home address, Macon said.

And for as long as students have had the ability to restrict their directory information through OASIS, students have been bound to an all-or-nothing situation. It means that keeping contact information private necessarily accompanies a restriction of all other educational records.

As it stands, "Restrict all directory information?" on OASIS allows for only a "Yes" or "No" response, without providing the options to omit cell phone numbers or parents' home addresses.

"Under the federal law FERPA, if an institution doesn't have the capability to allow students to select various pieces to be restricted, it's an all or nothing," Macon said. "It's frustrating for everyone. If we could provide it with being selective, we would definitely do that."

And OASIS lacks these capabilities as a result of dated technology.

"We're frequently limited to the number of lines we can have on [OASIS]," Macon said.

"If we had a modern student system we'd have a lot more flexibility. We would have the capability for students to select only a restriction on their address being reprinted in the directory."

"We could set up a link to another page in OASIS [to information on FERPA] but that would make it clunky," she said.

OASIS is non-relational, meaning its 14 to 15 different segments do not communicate to one another. For this reason, any changes made are complicated for institutes across the board.

"[OASIS] is not a true Web site," Macon said. "It's a screen scrape from the mainframe. That's why we don't have the flexibility to do the things you do with a true Web site, the flexibility to have more information on there."

Furthermore, some of its technology is nearly three decades old, and some is written in obsolete languages, Macon said.

"We are very far behind other institutions, especially other institutions of our size and caliber," she said.

The bottom line

In order to overcome OASIS's limitations, a new student information system would have to be implemented, Macon said.

"If we had a modern student system, that would give us a lot of flexibility on this. We would be able to provide better services to students," she said.

And such a system is a long time coming, according to Macon, because of a great obstacle in its path.

"Dollars," Macon said. "It's a very expensive proposition."

In November 2006, a University data management exploratory committee proposed a $40 million overhaul of the University's four administrative information systems, The Red & Black reported in February 2007. But so far nothing has happened.

"I truly believe the upper administration understands the need for [a modern information system]," Macon said. "It's the cost, and with all the other needs on campus and the budget situation the way it is, hiring new faculty or new student system? Of course everyone will say hiring new faculty is more important."

For now, the registrar is making changes given its limitations to prevent students from placing a FERPA restriction they don't understand, Macon said.

One step is the revamping of its Web site with a page dedicated to explaining in detail the context and implications of FERPA, which Macon said she hopes will be in place by Christmas.

It also will remove the ability to place or remove the FERPA restriction from OASIS, changing the process so students will have to visit the Registrar to sign the restriction into effect.

"So at least they have to think about it a little bit with all the ramifications listed there for them," Macon said.

A mass e-mail will announce the new system and Web site when the time comes, she said.

For students searching for jobs, a way to avoid complications with potential employers is to remove the FERPA restriction during that time period and later reinstate it if desired, Macon said.

"In my 30-some years of working with [FERPA] I've never known a student who didn't get a job because of a restriction, because there are ways of handling it," she said.

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