Guide to FERPA Glossary

Annual notice: every year a college is required to inform students about the institution's educational records policy

Attendance: includes physical presence in classroom and via distance ed (internet or video instruction, and other electronic communication technologies that may be developed in the future)

Direct control: under FERPA, a contractor hired by the college is under the direct control of the college with respect to the use and maintenance of information from education records; the Department of Education recommends that the college have a clearly written contract outlining the contractor’s specific responsibilities under FERPA.

Directory information: includes the parts of an education record that would not be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed, such as student’s name, address, telephone number, email address, photo, data and place of birth, field of study, academic level, enrollment status (e.g. full-time or part-time), dates of attendance, participation in sports and activities, degrees, honors and awards received, and most recent school attended; does not include a student’s social security number but may include a student ID number if that number cannot be used without a PIN or password to access educational records

Disclosure: the release of student educational records; rules regarding disclosure with and without student/parent consent are outlined in FERPA; it is not considered disclosure for a research organization or state agency to return a document to its original source

Education record: a student's academic information that is maintained by a college or NCCCS; this does not include law enforcement, employment or medical records, or records created after a student has left the school (previously referred to in FERPA as “alumni records”); also excludes grades on peer-graded papers before they are collected and recorded by a teacher (consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Owasso Independent School v. Falvo)

Family Policy Compliance Office: the office within the U.S. Department of Education that is responsible for enforcing/administering FERPA at all levels of education

Non-directory information: information that may not be released without a student's consent; includes birthdate, religion, citizenship, ethnicity, gender, GPA, marital status, grades/exam scores

Personally identifiable information: any directory or non-directory information that is easily traced to a particular student; this may include the student's name, names of parents or family members, address, social security number, personal characteristics, or any other information that clearly distinguishes the student's identity; as of 2009, personally identifiable information includes biometric data (fingerprints, retinal scans, handwriting, DNA, etc.)

School officials: faculty, administration, clerical and professional employees (including student employees) who manage student education record information; may now be defined to include contractors, consultants, volunteers, and other outside parties to whom a college has outsourced institutional services or functions it would otherwise use employees to perform