Confidentiality

Amz

I also posted this on the DCU forum. Interested to hear other people's opinions.

I'm just curious to know how others feel about this. I was made aware that a lecturer was discussing the progress of a student in her class with other students in the class i.e. status of coursework etc.

Is there nothing to prevent this happening, or is there a complaint system in place whereby a student can seek some sort of apology for this kind of thing?

The student who's work was discussed is quite upset at this as the people his work was discussed with are classmates and they wouldn't be particularly familiar with his circumstances etc. so it was a little presumptuous of a lecturer to behave in this way. To me this is a serious issue as a person's coursework, or progress is certainly not the concern of their classmates.

vector

You think thats bad, two of my lecturers put up assignment results on the notice board with [real_names] and not [student_numbers]

leeroybrown

In general a lecturer shouldn't be discussing a student's progress with other students. If the student in question has a grievance with this their best course of action would probably be to talk to the Students Union who are (or should be) in place to deal with situations like this and give advice.

Also, I think that while a lecturer posting public exam results with real names may be poor practice, discussing an individual student's work/progress/circumstances is far worse as it singles out that one student.

vector

expanding the privacy discussion further...

When I started my last job my multinational employer contacted my alma mater to confirm that
-I had a degree
-That is was a H1

That is standard to mulitnationals aparently, so I'd guess that somewhere/sometime in college we all signed a terms and conditions that allows disclosure of our results to third parties, id guess that on registration day in YR1 we signed a book

Ninja Turtle

While I don't think there is no particular rule that prevents lecturer from disclosing a persons results/progress with the course to the rest of the class, I would agree it is unfair for the student involved, particularly if she wasn't asked about it before hand.

I'd say before running of to the Student's Union, I'd talk to the lecturer first, rather than getting someone else to do it for me. If you get no satisfaction from him, then go to the head of his department, particularly emphasising how upset this made me.

That is standard to mulitnationals aparently, so I'd guess that somewhere/sometime in college we all signed a terms and conditions that allows disclosure of our results to third parties, id guess that on registration day in YR1 we signed a book

If you didn't have this you could have any old bluffer saying he got any degree from such and such a college. Would that be fair on people who actually worked 3/4 years on their degree?

simu

I don't know what the protocol is on that. One of my tutors once photocopied some translation or something I did as an example for the rest of the class. I can't remember if she asked my permission but at least, she was saying that it was a good piece of work. Giving negative criticism about a student's work to their classmates seems unkind to say the least, though.

Lump

Any of your work is owned by the college. At least when I was in Uni and essays and/or films I made were owned by the college.

John

Stephen

My college (IT Carlow) has the same policy on stuff like student projects, unless the student has negotiated some other terms with them (which happened in the case of one of the guys in my class who is doing a project for his employer. They agreed a licence with the college where they would own the code but the college would have access to it but are not allowed to disclose details etc).

Nukem

Lump wrote:

Any of your work is owned by the college. At least when I was in Uni and essays and/or films I made were owned by the college.

John

True in some cases but when doing projects that are not on the curriculum such as an open project;then they must ask permission. I think results are confidential and are not allowed to be discussed with anyone other than in a professional manner ie not other students. And that thing with the results with names on the wall is rubbish i would have freaked out.

Nukem

Lump

Yea for us, it was basically anything made on college equipment was theirs. They don't enforce it but you need to keep it in mind.

John