I have students choose a code name -- favorite cartoon character, the name of the street they grew up on, favorite movie, etc. -- then I sort grades according to code name and pass around a sheet in class. It has worked well, and it's pretty entertaining for me to see Dudley Dooright, Pretty Woman and 12th Avenue in class.
-----Original Message----- From: "Jerrold Zar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 16:03:37 -0600 Subject: Displaying grades anonymously Publicly displaying student grades is against federal law if the grades can be identified with particular students, hence he need for anonymity in the display. So, some instructors assign a numerical code to each student, or perhaps use the last four digits of the students' Social Security number. Use of the entire SSN is discouraged because of other privacy concerns.) But, a caution is necessary here; if readers of the list of numbers can make a good guess as the identity of any of the students, the law has been broken and students could be embarrassed. This can happen if you list the students in alphabetical order, even without their names. For example: (A) You have a class in which there is a student named Anne Abrahams and a student named Xavier Zwicky. If each student in the class is familiar with the names of most or all of the other students, it will readily be known who the first and last students on the list are. (B) You have a class in which there is a Margaret Smith, a Manuel Smith, a Mary Smith, and a Morton Smith. Any of those students, upon finding his or her grade on the list will likely guess the grades of the other three Smiths. If your class list is on a computer, with the code numbers, you could--and should--sort and print by code number to avoid this. Jerrold H. Zar, Ph.D. Department of Biological Sciences Northern Illinois University DeKalb IL 60115-2854 . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . ================================================================= . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
