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Videoconferencing, Recording, and FERPA
The Family Educational Right and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 (Public Law 93-380), affords students certain rights with respect to their educational records and requires Portland State University to assure that those students’ rights are not abridged. FERPA protects the privacy of all “education records,” in any medium, maintained by Portland State University.
Class recording FERPA guidance for faculty
FERPA restricts the sharing of student records information, including student class-activities. To maintain FERPA compliance with classroom recording, it’s imperative that any class recordings which include any student activity are shared only with students, TAs, and instructors who are in the same class as the recording. Class recordings may not be reused across classes or sections.
Any recordings of students engaged in any class activities is subject to FERPA prohibitions and should not be shared beyond the class. Student class activities can include student names, voices, photo or video, and chat activities. Class recording content can not be shared outside of the class without a FERPA release from all parties.
For more information about FERPA, see the FERPA Tutorial and FERPA FAQs maintained by the Office of the Registrar.
Syllabus statement for class recordings
We will use technology for virtual meetings and recordings in this course. Our use of such technology is governed by FERPA, the Acceptable Use Policy and PSU’s Student Code of Conduct. A record of all meetings and recordings is kept and stored by PSU, in accordance with the Acceptable Use Policy and FERPA. Your instructor will not share recordings of your class activities outside of course participants, which include your fellow students, TAs/GAs/Mentors, and any guest faculty or community based learning partners that we may engage with. You may not share recordings outside of this course. Doing so may result in disciplinary action.
What about recorded lectures?
Faculty recordings of themselves which do not contain any student information or activities are not governed by FERPA and can be shared across classes and sections. Instructors may wish to record lectures for multiple sections or terms and share those recordings across sections. This is acceptable so long as recordings do not include any students. For tips on recording your Zoom meetings without capturing students, see Zoom Recording and Student Privacy.
This article was last updated .