[ARCHIVED] New FERPA requirements for cross-listed courses!

[John_Lowe]

With this statement that just came out today from LeRoy Rooker, what will be Instructure’s take on this interpretation of FERPA?  What will your institution's take be on this interpretation?

Ask the FERPA Professor| resources| AACRAO

Essentially, LeRoy Rooker’s statement is that an institution can allow a student to see other students in a course for which the student is officially registered, but cannot allow a student to see (or be seen by) other students in another (cross-listed) class in the LMS.  To me, it sounds like the door remains open for true cross-listed, in-person courses (like a Psychology and Neuroscience course which are really one-in-the-same, but some students register as PSY and others as NEU) since those students meet at the same time in the same physical classroom with each other.  But this new interpretation seems to shut down courses where one instructor teaches 4 sections of the same Accounting course and simply wants to cross-list those into one course shell in Canvas for the sake of their own convenience and the students would not normally see each other in the physical classroom since they are 4 separate Accounting classes.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Alternate interpretations of LeRoy's answer?  How will you adapt in Canvas?

Deactivated user​, Deactivated user​,  @Renee_Carney ​,  @scottdennis ​, mitch​,  @jared ​

[richard-jerz · Accepted solution]

"I can think of many reasons why a student in Class A would not want to be identified by students in Class B, but reasons do not matter, .."

Kelly, out of curiosity, might you be able to give some reasons?

In a physical classroom, a student in class A can be identified by any other student in Class A, and this doesn't seem to be a problem.  Also, a student in Class B can walk by the Class A classroom and see who is in it.  In fact, anyone can walk by a classroom and see who is in it.  (Will schools need to cover all classroom windows?)

Yes, reasons do not matter, but if there is not solid logic behind the reason, maybe the rule should be challenged.

(I am probably the only one who does not understand this, so I look forward to some explanations.  I anticipate being sorry that I asked.)

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Hi  @anthonem ‌, in 2017, you posted a link to a guide for cross-listing teachers, but that link no longer works.  Do you have a new link? Would appreciate it!

[anthonem]

 @Nancy_Webb_CCSF ‌ Here is the document.

I'm not updating our help guides any longer. I think there have been Canvas updates that could make this doc shorter. I welcome any revision suggestions I can pass along

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Thanks Mark Anthoney I am going to look your document over.  Very much ppreciate your sharing and if I have any information to add will let you know.

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Very well written document,  @anthonem  I started revising my own while looking at yours and did find a few small things we cover that it doesn't. So I think it might become longer rather than shorter!

1) Setting by student to  "limit this user to only see fellow section users."  But perhaps your administrators take care of this setting, we do, so the teacher doesn't have to.

2)  We learned that old versions of the Canvas mobile apps allowed students to post to the main discussion even if they are in a group, so our teachers need to remind students to update their Canvas app.

3) For group discussions by sections, we remind teachers to a) add new students to their section group ASAP so they can't post to the main discussion b) Not just the first time a course is created, but also when there's a new semester and they've copied content from a previous cross-listed course, after they create the section groups they need to edit every discussion to use the group set.  c) we also instruct them to create the section group set as close to starting of semester as they can, using the automatic assignment by section to create the groups.  Afterwards they have to edit discussions and keep up with adding new students.

4) Now that discussions can be copied and limited to a section using "post to" for ungraded (or assign to for graded), we give them the option of duplicating discussions and editing them to be assigned to (or posted to) one section only.  Some find this easier than working with group discussions because it doesn't require keeping up with new students, or visiting multiple workspaces. Also teachers are not notified if there's a new post in a group discussion.

5) We tell them to not allow students the right to edit any Canvas pages unless the pages are in their group work area.

6) since we started using Namecoach, teachers have to hide that in cross-listed courses as well as People, Chat, Conferences and Collaborations.  Keep your eye on LTI's in your institution.  By the way, those items are referenced as tabs but now they are course navigation menu items.

7) If a teacher uses peer reviews in assignments, they should create separate assignments for each section to automatically assign the reviews. (Or else manually assign peer reviews by section if there's one assignment.)

I think that's it.

Nancy

[anthonem]

Thanks Nancy! I'll pass along your feedback. I really appreciate your looping back here and sharing.

[bgibson]

This is what I had come across, regarding FERPA, in May 2015:

“…Please only use the cross-listing feature for courses that meet together. Combining courses that do not meet together in person is a violation of the Federal Education Rights Privacy Act (FERPA).”

https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028/pages/cross-listing-sections-combining-courses-in-canv...

Canvas Guide: Complying with FERPA in Merged Courses (Seattle University)

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fseat...​

Our CSM stated that, "I'm following up with our internal team regarding your FERPA concerns as it relates to cross-listing."

---

My initial reaction then was a sense of mild panic.  I contacted our Registrar regarding the matter, since we perpetually had requests for merged course sections, including multiple faculty.  What I found online, and in the day to day, was that some held FERPA inviolate, and others.

Whatever satisfies FERPA regulations, while providing for a common sense approach, so that faculty can take advantage of the technology to make their lives easier.  

[snugent]

Thank you  @John_Lowe ​ for posting this. This discussion is extremely helpful. Also thank you  @anthonem ​ for the link to the document you created. I did some testing with the option to limit users to only see people in their section. This option I believe appears when you merge sections manually but I am not sure if you can access via the API. You can also access this option by viewing each individual student profile page from the people list. You have to click more user options to see it. In my testing I found the following.

• People list - If students are limited to see only their assigned section, they only see people from their section in the people list.
• Inbox - If students are limited to see only their assigned section, they only see people from their section when creating a new message.
• Discussions - This is where it gets tricky. I created a discussion and used the assigned by section option so each section had their own assignment. In discussions students can see all posts regardless of the assign by section. Instructors should create separate discussions for each section and then assign by section. This would also be the case for any assignment where faculty are requiring students to interact with each other such as Peer Review and group assignments. This will be a hard sell since it requires more setup time and increases the number of the gradebook columns.

It would be nice if the limit viewing by section was easier to apply to sections and also worked with discussions and peer review assignments.

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Thank you all for this important FERPA discussion.  I am unclear if when cross listing a section, the users will have "user can only view students in their assigned course sections" setting set.  Susan Nugent, you say you think it's an option when you cross-list, but looking at the Canvas docs it's not mentioned. How do I cross-list a section in a course?  If it's not set, then it's essential that we have an easy way to set it for the entire section not one student at a time.  Vote on the idea, Edit Section: Restricting students to see own section only thanks Jared Stein.

And thanks Susan for bringing up the limitations of the "user can only view students in their assigned course sections" setting. It does not apply to discussions and content pages.  Content pages aren't really a problem unless you let students edit them.  Then student editors' names appear in View Page History, visible to all. (There are other problems with letting students edit content pages, such as they can insert links to hidden menu items and other course content. That's another topic.)

This from the Canvas Docs How do I limit a user to only view other users in the same course section? : "Discussion topics and Pages are not affected by section limitations and can be viewed by any student. These feature areas could be restricted by creating content in course groups. However, course groups cannot be organized by section and would have to be created manually."  And: "Limiting students to interact by section only affects Collaborations, Chat, People, and Conversations"  Note: I agree it seems to effect Inbox too.

I feel that having to create and maintain groups to keep section discussions separate is unnecessary work.  Also students then need to deal with a group home page. Why not include discussions in the setting "user can only view students in their assigned course sections"?  Or have a separate course setting to limit discussions to sections?  The teacher should be able to see all discussions in one place, and students should only see discussions by their section members after clicking on Discussions in course navigation.

If we have to use groups for section privacy, not my preference, there should be a way to automatically synchronize group with section membership and to auto-create the groups. Also in course settings there should be a checkbox to force all discussions to be in group mode rather than making an instructor edit every discussion.  Note that then Discussions has to be hidden in the course navigation menu, because any discussion on the course page would be visible to all, and all section discussions would have to be on the group page. Complicated.

For another time, it would be good to look at all the Apps.  Do any of them use sections to limit viewing of student names?

So important!  I'd love to see FERPA officially addressed in Canvas policies.

[snugent]

 @Nancy_Webb_CCSF ​ you are correct. This option doesn't appear when merging a course. I wasn't sure since it had been a while since I merged courses. UGH! I reviewed the API documentation and this option is included in the enrollments section. enrollment[limit_privileges_to_course_section]

We have two different use cases for merging courses.

Convenience for the instructor - Merging helps to only have to maintain one course space. I manually merge courses and don't currently advertise this option to faculty in general. I only do for faculty who request it so I will need to educate the them  about how they should setup assignments and discussions.

Honor courses - This is because of terrible setup in the SIS. When a student completes honor paperwork, they are automatically taken out the current enrolled section and placed in honor section which affects their course work in Canvas. I merges the original section and honor section so the student's work can be seen by instructor and student. We are still working to create better workflows for this so students and instructors don't panic when this happens. This use case isn't really affected by FERPA because we are placing the student back into their original section.

[cholling]

This is all good information about how to get it to work, but defeats the purpose of cross-listing them in the first place -- the interactions of all the students with one another.

[kmeeusen]

We all see the value of student interaction, but also have to understand that students have a legal right to privacy. No rules prevent cross-listing of courses, but we need to do this is a manner that still protects the privacy of students who have opted out of the disclosure of directory information.

KLM

[mjennings]

While I agree that student interaction is great, I disagree that that is the "purpose of cross-listing in the first place". In my experience that main purpose is to reduce the redundant work of an instructor with multiple sections and to ensure consistent content, communication & settings between sections with different instructors. In fact we typically find that having more students in the sections tends to overwhelm the discussion instead of narrowing it down to focus on the smaller interactions (students feel like a small voice & offer less when they feel like one of the other 300+ students will either over run them or "surely someone else will ask that question").  This results in really only getting a handful of the more vocal, opinionated or technologically adept students "running" the discussions.

[kmeeusen]

I agree Matthew, and have experienced this in my own courses when I used to cross-list sections. I tried for a couple quarters and found the discussions overwhelming for me and my students. 

There are much easier ways to develop consistent classrooms across your sections. I simply complete my classroom for one section including dues dates, then copy the content into my other section shells.

KLM

[mjennings]

 @kmeeusen 

I agree that it is easier to create the main course content/assignments and then copy to the other section. Unfortunately the reality is that we have courses that are sometimes being built just a few week ahead of students need to view the materials. While this is not ideal or the norm, it is a reality that occurs from time to time.  Even if we were to just copy the individual assignments as they were made, some of our courses have 10+ sections and sometimes that annoying "human error" happens and a section gets missed.

That's why I think having a setting that sets "students only see their section" when a course is built/cross-listed is a simple solution. Then have a course level setting that can allow sections to interact so the individual instructors can chose if it is necessary. This also errs on the side of privacy which is always a safer choice.

[James]

 @mjennings ​ , A few weeks? I'm so envious. Some of our deans shuffle courses and instructors around the weekend before classes start on Monday morning.

[mjennings]

Sorry, I may not have been clear. I was saying that during the term we may be building out module 10 just before it is suppose to open (i.e. finishing it on a Friday for it to open to students on Monday). We also have instructor moves up until and sometimes even after the first few days of the term.

Shuddering to type that I can recall a particular time when an ACI that was hired wasn't able to access the course they were teaching for the first 2-3 weeks of a term.

[dbastedo]

I understand what you are saying, but there is a lack of logic when applied to online courses.  Cross-listing courses makes sense because they are the same course.  If the issue is time and place, that you can't merge two classes that meet at separate times and places, then that point becomes mute when two sections meet online (same space) and without a scheduled meeting time (class arranged).  There is no time and place involved.  Even with time and place involved, students can see and contact one another.  There is no unreasonable amount of data shared among students in a class roster.  IF this were a FERPA issue then our entire registration process would be in violation.  We release information to students registered in the same course.  It is minimal, but it is there.  Merging courses is not any different than a student registering in any course.  They will initially be in a course where they will see students that they didn't expect.  The only difference is that there will be more students visible in merged sections.  The number is students visible to one another is not the issue.  I don't believe that this is a FERPA issue, it is essentially a safety issue.  We can't keep students safe from one another if we don't know their issues, but we can help students keep themselves safe by giving clear descriptions of their class circumstances.  It must be made clear to students that their section is being merged with other similar sections so that they can make the determinations needed to keep themselves safe.

[John_Lowe]

 @jared ​, any updates for us?  I was hoping to hear something announced at InstructureCon or soon thereafter.

[jared]

Hi John et al, unfortunately no update yet.

We did look at the the idea of implementing an SIS import field that would automatically trigger the existing "restrict students from seeing other sections" feature, however as others such as snugent have noted, that doesn't apply in cross-listed Discussions -- so it'd be only a partial fix, or a fix for courses that don't use Discussions.

Let's call this Option 1 -- would that be an acceptable improvement for most of these use cases?

As you think about that, I want to highlight one thing that  @mjennings ​ suggested: "[the] main purpose [of Canvas cross-listing] is to reduce the redundant work of an instructor with multiple sections and to ensure consistent content, communication & settings between sections with different instructors". I agree: cross-listing is a time-saver, and we do want to keep this feature in order to make life easier for teachers. But we may not be able to solve all the things:

For example, we are still in the research and planning phase for work that will make managing course copies / maintaining updates and versions much easier, however it's too soon to know if that will fully address this particular issue. Likely it could address the "consistent content  ... & settings" that Matthew pointed out, but probably not the "communication".

And that's really the hard part, here: Restricting students from viewing other sections' participation in Discussions. One idea has been to automatically create Groups from Sections, but that's more difficult than it sounds; I found this feature idea from late last year that was archived: Create Groups Based on Sections​ -- this is at least enlightening in terms of the complexity of such a solution, e.g. enrollment adjustment.

Let's call this Option 2, acknowledging that it actually may not be feasible.

The only other option that I can see would be to re-design Announcements and Discussions to be "section-aware", so that, as a teacher, I can create one Discussion or Announcement that spawns a different "copy" of that thread for each section. This could be an extension of the Graded Discussion differentiation feature. Is there a feature request for this already? Maybe  @Renee_Carney ​ knows!

Let's call this Option 3 -- it'd be a big undertaking, and may in some ways complicate the user experience for teachers, but I'd leave that to a Product Manager to think through

Finally, we can think about an Option 4, which would be to mask a student's identity from peers in other sections, if they were identified as "directory restricted" as an admin.

What do you all think? Option 1 is clearly the easiest to develop. Option 4 may be the next easiest, but not really elegant -- and may need to be discussed with counsel / lawyers. Options 2 & 3, the section-aware options, are certainly bigger / hairier, but may be things the Community wants to prioritize beyond this particular issue.

Other ideas for addressing this particular FERPA interpretation with the least amount of impact on the roadmap are, of course, welcome.

[mjennings]

Thanks  @jared ​! I will probably need to let some of that peculate in my brain over night but my gut response would be for  options 1 & 2, knowing full well that my opinion may not serve the needs of others. I have actually been a proponent for the as well as an option in the grade book to filter by group. While those would not restrict students from seeing someone from a different section in the "People" tool it could help.

As I type I am realizing that a combination of Options 2 & 3 would actually cover most of our needs as we could just hide the "People" menu item. Build groups by section and the use a differentiated discussion (graded which currently exists or ungraded which would need to be made possible.) Of course the "bigger / hairier" options end up filling my list.

[John_Lowe]

Option 1 seems to be the option that most closely matches existing functionality, so I'm in favor of that.  However, my tweak to it would be to not make it ONLY a SIS Import configurable option, but an option that can exist in the account settings with the course default "on".  Meaning, that an institution can turn on the privacy wall between sections with one switch at the global level by checking an account settings box.  Then, instructors can disable the privacy wall between sections with one switch per course by unchecking a course settings box.  For example, this would be like a Feature Option toggle where at the account level it is set to "Allow" but the behavior defaults to "On" and then instructors could turn it off at the course level if needed.  This would allow institutions set the privacy wall as the default while still allowing instructors the flexibility they need.

Rationale:  By making this a SIS Import option only, it still means that this is a section-by-section setting that has to be set and that would exclude sections created manually by instructors in the GUI.  The SIS Import only option also prevents an institution from taking a privacy-first position -- meaning that the privacy wall is not the default behavior and must be set on each section via SIS Import.  That's still tons better than the user-by-user option that we have now, but not quite good enough to assume a privacy-first position.

My recommendation would be to expand the scope of the Option 1 while also still pursuing Option 4.  There may be times when the institution or individual courses might not want to use the section-privacy-wall provided by Option 1, and Option 4 could be used to protect the individually opted-out students.

[ProfessorBeyrer]

Thank you  @jared ​ for describing those options. From reading the FAQ page on the U.S. Department of Education's web site (What is an Education Record?), it is clear that which class a student is enrolled is protected information. It states that education records include "class lists, student course schedules." Therefore we need permission from students before we allow other students to see which classes they are enrolled in. Whether an individual student wants their directory information restricted is not important; all students are entitled to the privacy of their educational records.

What I hope for is a modification of Option 1 that sets the permission to "limit this user to only see fellow section users" as on by default for all students. Let instructors then switch this option on one student at a time. That would serve our institutions' interest by mitigating the risk of illegal sharing of education records while also serve our instructors' interests by continually allowing them to post once and serve many.

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Very interesting  @ProfessorBeyrer ​ and our school agrees with protecting course schedules as private by maintaining separate sections (through convoluted settings) in cross-listed classes. But I would still wish for it to be possible to easily switch the limiting to one section permission on or off per section, not having to turn off the limit one student at a time as you suggest.  Some classes with multiple sections do all physically meet together and we feel that those students don't need to be limited to their own section in Canvas.

It should also be possible to keep discussions separate by section. Currently, discussions in a cross listed class are visible to everyone, displaying the names of the posters.  Group discussions set up by section is the only workaround and it is not easy to set up properly.  We should be able to choose that all discussions are limited to section members.

[814068337]

 @jared   said:

Finally, I want to note that it may be possible to address this FERPA concern without technology at all, if institutions were willing to change how they define courses and sections, and make it clear to students that signing up for any section of a course means you could have classmates from any of x sections

And I really want to reflect on this for a minute.

Students have a right to privacy around their attendance/class schedule records - yes.  But that doesn't mean they can dictate course caps or determine specific enrollments in specific courses. 

So let's take a look at a real enrollment scenarios: I have English 101 Section A with 20 students and Section B with 14 students prior to the quarter starting. The current interpretation from this thread says we would violate FERPA by crosslisting/merging the two sections despite the fact that the 20 students in Section A have no idea who each other are yet, and neither do the 14 in Section B.  So, instead, we raise the cap on Section A to 34 students, cancel Section B and roll those students into Section A (which will now have 34 students who still don't know each other and can't do anything about the course change).  Now we are no longer in violation of FERPA with the very same students??? 

It seems to me that merging/cross listing falls under similar umbrella of institutional scheduling practices (institutional use of educational records).  The expectation when a student registers for a class is that they won't know who they are going to interact with on any given class until the dust of enrollment settles (add/drops, cancel classes, waitlisters let in early before they are legitimately on the roster, added sections, etc.)...all of these affect who sits in a class and "sees" a student there (on or offline).  Once it settles, *that's* who is in your class - merged or not, cancelled and added to another section or not, added off the waitlist or not, etc.

Perhaps the disclosure of class schedules more about searchable directories...I shouldn't be able to look up a student, see all the classes they are taking and the times - that makes sense as "protected" - so the crazy ex girlfriends/boyfriends can't stalk.

Thoughts?

[ProfessorBeyrer]

Those are good points, and I think whether the cross-listed course counts as a single class related to how the college defines the terms "class lists." As an instructor deciding to group your two English classes together you are acting in your capacity as a school employee and therefore are creating an "official" class list that includes all 34 students. I think an analogy is a science class that has one lecture with multiple associated lab sections. All of the students are in the same lecture class (hundreds at some places!) even though they are concurrently enrolled in different lab sections. What you wrote about searchable schedules also makes sense. No one but the student (and those employees with a legitimate need) should know where that student is expected to be at a given day and time.

Lisa Chamberlin wrote:

And I really want to reflect on this for a minute.

And I really want to reflect on the fact that you have English classes with only 14 students!

[sweaver]

I was just informed a couple days ago that, as professors, we are no longer allowed to combine our courses due to FERPA. I can understand a lot of what I call "main" points to FERPA - privacy with grades, etc. - but how does knowing Jane is in Section B while being in Section A constitute knowing Jane’s schedule? A scenario was given to me about a stalker or over bearing parents (an offender from here on). The probability that the offender is enrolling in the same course (different section enforced by the registrar) is slim – existent – but slim (especially if it’s a parent). So if I were an offender and I happened to register for the same course and was put in a different section, would Canvas be the only means for me to figure out where Jane was taking the course? Couldn’t I simply look at the course schedules and determine where and when the other was being held then wait outside the classroom? I can understand the whole schedule being kept private. If I were an offender and knew Jane’s whole schedule, I could determine where she was going on campus at any given time (for the most part). But not from one section to another.

Can anyone help me understand this? It’s not that I’m be belligerent (which I think I might be) but I truly would like to understand the thinking behind the law (which may be my problem to begin with...).

[jbrady2]

So, I have a math instructor that would like to be able to communicate with multiple sections of students in the same course (e.g. College Algebra) for the purpose of providing example problems and answer student question without having to duplicate the same task multiple times.

I have never had to deal with issues concerning FERPA, so I do not know much about it, but if I am understanding correctly what has been posted here, would having the students from different sections all join the same session in a screen sharing tool such as Skype violate the educational records aspect of FERPA concerning class lists and student course schedules in that fellow students would be able to infer that this person must be in another section of the same math course?

Also, if violations of privacy concerning class lists and student course schedule can occur simply from one student knowing that another student is taking a particular course, then how would this also not apply to a student entering a physical classroom and seeing another student who remained behind to speak with the instructor after class and also seeing something (e.g. textbook, writing on the board, etc.) that indicates what the class might be, and an inference made that Student A is taking Math X not also violate this section?

It appears to me that there are too many ways in which students might already "accidentally" find out course information about other students that the interpretation could not be meant to cover such grey areas.

But, perhaps, 814068337​ and  @ProfessorBeyrer ​ are on to something with their example that depending upon the schools interpretation of what constitutes a course, multiple student from various sections enrolled into a single course might not be an issue.

[CindiKerns]

"So, I have a math instructor that would like to be able to communicate with multiple sections of students in the same course (e.g. College Algebra) for the purpose of providing example problems and answer student question without having to duplicate the same task multiple times."

That sounds like a great feature request. I heard from a faculty member today that if they could just send an announcement to multiple sections it would be a huge help.

[jbrady2]

ctomes​ Yes, this instructor would like for the Conferences tool to work across multiple sections so that she can hold office hours and use the share desktop feature to work through example problems.  Being a Microsoft school, we thought inviting all of her students across the multiple sections to a Skype for Business session might work, but when we tested it, we ran into bandwidth issues just having three people located on the same campus in a session - not certain if this is an infrastructure issue at the campus, at the school, or an issue in Skype.

However, one positive note, after a lengthy discussion between the Registrar, the Director of AA Programs, and myself, it has been decided that what the instructor wants to accomplish should not violate FERPA.

[John_Lowe]

I think the difference between your Skype example and the other accidental ways that students themselves might find out information is disclosure.  If students find out on their own who is in what classes, that doesn't necessarily involve the institution disclosing information.  When you set up a Skype session with two different and distinct courses, you, representing the institution, did just disclose that information. 

Based on this recent update from LeRoy, that becomes a problem if any student in either of those two courses has opted-out of disclosing directory information.

[jbrady2]

I can see the logic in your reasoning, and I will definitely address with our registrar whether or not we have an opt-out option for directory information and how this would affect what the faculty member wants to do.  Something that enforces just how vague FERPA is and how there can be many interpretations is that, concerning student records disclosure for class lists and student course schedules, the opinion I was given is that that only matters in an instance of the information being released to an outside, third party.  Of course, unfortunately, the only opinion that ultimately matters would be that of the judge overseeing possible lawsuit proceedings.

[John_Lowe]

Send them that link at the top of this post from LeRoy Rooker.  I guarantee that your registrar will recognize that name and will want to see that recent ruling.  I called it an "opinion" earlier, but an "opinion" from LeRoy isn't really an "opinion." 

[jbrady2]

Since the issue in the post you linked to concerns a student who has chosen to opt out of directory information listing, then answer would seem to be to place the burden back on the student to opt back in if they wish to use a group conference tool. A statement could be placed in the various courses informing the students that participation in the group conference session will make their directory information visible to students across multiple sections of the same course and requiring the students to agree to this before they have access to the group conference tool. This might be accomplished by placing the statement in a Quiz in a Canvas Module where the student must answer agree or disagree, and answering with agree would count as the correct response to the Quiz and unlock the next part of the Module, which would contain the link to the group conference tool. In order to not make it punitive, students would need to be given the option to have a private conference with the instructor if they so choose and have that option explained to them in the disclosure statement.

Granted, this option might still lead to some issues, such as the argument that this could appear coercive if a student fears that he or she might be wasting the instructors time by asking for a private session and agrees to the group chat even if they didn't originally want to. If this were only for the benefit of the instructor then I wouldn't even waste that much time trying to find a solution to make it work, but what about a scenario where during a combined section conference a student in one section asks a question that students in the other section(s) hadn't even considered, and all students benefit from this?

I guess I am simply trying to find the right balance between protecting someone's privacy and still allowing the students the ability to gain the most benefit from their instructor, fellow students, the materials, and the technology.

[sweaver]

I am new to this discussion and have enjoyed reading through all the comments and ideas.

With that said, my main purpose in combining sections is to insure consistency across all sections. I do not have the need in most of my courses to have students in one section interact with students in another section.

It seems to me we are trying to focus on how to hide one section from the other. But what is your main purpose of combining sections? What is the main purpose for most of the community? If it is like mine, to insure consistency as well as reducing redundant work, then let's focus on that part of it. Right now we are focusing on how to hide students in different sections from each other.

I have a solution that would work for having consistent content/assignments/etc. and that is to have the ability to flag courses as being "Linked". I would do this with my sections which in Canvas are separate courses. What this would mean is that when I create something in one course (assignment, quiz, discussion, rubric, etc.) it gets copied to the other. When I edit something in one (again assignment, quiz, discussion, rubric, etc.) it gets updated in the other. From a developer point of view, it would require a little bit of back-end database modification and web programming, but it would solve the, I-have-to-create-all-this-content-multiple-times and I-may-forget-to-change-one (which leads to inconsistent delivery) problem. This would also provide consistency over sections taught by different professors/teachers.

Having a "master" course that we copy stuff from wouldn't work if things are being updated or as mjennings@uab.edu mentioned, "have courses that are sometimes being built just a few weeks ahead of students need to view the materials." But it would completely solve the “hide students from others in another section” since the sections are not combined at all, they are still separate courses. Everything else would remain the same. The only difference being the “Link” button (and course options). Of course that gives the developers more work, but then I’m a developer (as well as professor) so if you need help or architectural ideas, email me.

[mjennings]

 @sweaver ​, I like the idea for "linked" courses, but wonder how that might work with sections that meet on different days/times which might actually require different dates on the same content. Currently when all sections are merged, you can use differentiated assignments based on section. Under a linked course model, at least in my most likely flawed understanding, a change would flow down to the other sections so that you do not need to make the same change.

I see two solutions to this: 1) the linked course only flows one way, which means you could change content & settings in the main course, they flow to the linked sections and then you can make any section specific changes in the sections themselves. However this doesn't seem to solve the problem of less work (for those with this particular section issue) or reducing the chance of the  "I-may-forget-to-change-one" problem. 2) would be back to a "master section" that "SmartSyncs" (term is trademarked - hey Instructure I am will to licences the term to you ) all changes down to all sections that are linked. This master section would know which sections are linked and allow you to configure differentiated dates based on those linked sections so the dates settings are managed in just the master course. Of still allowing the individual section to make an override or local change for individual students would need to be accounted for as well.

I am sure that the second option is <sarcasm>super easy to develop and could be in place in the following update</sarcasm>, just need to get the check for the "SmartSync" functionality and we are all good.

[sweaver]

Matthew,

Great question! Here are a couple thoughts related to what you brought up and I think it can all be addressed in how "copy" functionality is built.

First, I personally like being able to update from either course and have the content be updated in the other. However, your point made me think of courses where adjuncts are teaching some sections that you don't want to give the ability to change content. In this case, the architecture could be set up in such a way that when you link, you can link it either "one-way" or "synced". Then you would have the best of both worlds.

Regarding the problem of different assignment dates (or the like). When the assignment is first created (in whichever section) the assignment date would be pushed to the other section - since the assignment is new. In the architecture, however, this would something that, when changed (not new), would only change in the course you are editing - even if the courses are link via “synced”. Then, after creating the assignment, you would go to the other course and choose a different due date. This would be more work than what we currently have with joined sections (which we can't use and may not be fixed), but much less work than building 2 completely separate sections.

[SHEBENE]

I love the idea of a master course that can sync info to a set list of courses. That was brought up as something being investigated by  @jared ​ and then fleshed out some more by  @mjennings ​ and others. Something we run into is comparisons to Google Classroom for those considering blending learning with Canvas. Google can have a one-to-many approach that makes adjusting assignments and such much more convenient. This would help out and keep the courses still separate. If "SmartSync" (trademark, Matthew Jennings 2016) is too tough to pull off, at least page and settings content going one-way to the child courses and initial assignment creation goes out one-way to the child courses. That would go a long way towards providing consistency, convenience, and keeping the courses separate (Which also helps out with our gradebook passback that's looking for course SIS IDs instead of section SIS IDs.)

Thanks all for the discussion. Please let us know where the conversation takes you on master content courses  @jared ​

[mjennings]

As I have been mulling this over, I started thinking about ways to separate students by sections and thought "Well how do students know which section they are in". I understand that when they register it is for a particular section and they may know from there, but if most students are like me after registration they don't think about the section, just when the class meets or the instructor. So if there was no indication to the student once they are in the course how would they know which section they or someone else is in. If there is no indicating factor (from the student view) to tell them which section other students are in would that satisfy FERPA? I think the easiest way to do that would be to hide the section column from the student role under the people tab.

I am sure I am missing something as I very rarely work under a student perspective. Anyone with more knowledge feel free to explode my simple solution.

[bgibson]

Wouldn't the problem with FERPA be, that students in different sections, but combined in a cross listed site, would have access to Personally Identifiable Information that they wouldn't have normally because they don't physically meet at the same time?  The student doesn't have to know that another student is in a different section.  It is enough that they know something they shouldn't about this other student.  e.g. Jill Smith said this in our discussion forum.  If our sections did not physically meet at the same time, I wouldn't know that there was a Jill Smith taking this course and I wouldn't know what she had said in the discussion forum.

[John_Lowe]

Another scenario to consider -- and sadly one that my institution is all too familiar with recently if you've followed Big12 sports lately -- is related to Title IX.  Due to Title IX, we have had, and could have more situations, where a student is moved from one section to another to avoid contact with another student in the same section.  If that were to occur and sections have been combined in Canvas, those same students could potentially be put back into contact with one another by the institution in Canvas.  A section-based privacy wall could minimize/eliminate this contact without adversely impacting how the instructor uses Canvas.