Teacher access to student files

[abaxter2]

Hi All,

 

I was wondering how many of you allow teachers access to view / edit students documents / files that are stored in their my documents?

 

I am not trying to stop teachers from doing their job but feel that students need to take responsibility for their own files and do not want to open the school up to being accused of adjusting work so currently we do not allow this but I am looking into a "hand in folder" on the network or via office 365.

 

The problem I have is that one of the schools teachers is pushing for full access to students documents and now the schools SLT are asking why I will not give this teacher access.

 

I am willing to say I am wrong with my thinking but before I do this this I am interested to hear what other schools do? Am I right to stick to my guns and push for a hand in folder solution or should I drop this and allow full access to student "My Documents"

 

Thanks in advance.

[Guest obsidianpillar]

I've seen it before where Staff have READ permission to Student folders, however I can't see the logic in giving them edit/full control? The purpose of any educational computer system is to do just that, educate. If a Student's work needs marking/editing then it should be sent via en E-Mail or placed on a specific share where it is addressed to the member of Staff looking at the work.

 

In regards to you comment of "feel that students need to take responsibility for their own files and do not want to open the school up to being accused of adjusting work". This raises a question of what is your Student password policy set as? If you have a "set" password system whereby Student's don't have their own password/a default one set, which they can't change then there is no increased risk on that part as any Student could edit work if they wanted to on another account. I'd look to change this if this is what you do. However, it does depend as to what your school is like/what age the Students are.

What you have to remember is whilst you manage the network you are equally answerable to SMT. You can argue that you are faced with a balance of probability that work may or may not be changed and that doing so increases the risk of work being inadvertently overwritten and with you having to restore from backups etc reduces your productivity time.. (You can give X, Y, Z reasons that you choose to pick that you see fit. It is late and I can't think of any more .)

 

In short, give them read access - that's fine. However, I'd be cautious to give them any more than that. Unless your in very specific circumstances that you see yourself giving them more than that, I wouldn't. You shouldn't have to notify Parents/Staff of this change or anything because access to Student files is most likely noted in your AUP.

 

In regards to a "hand in folder". I was thinking of a new share with a script to create a folder based on username at login or whenever, set the security so that only that Student has write access and your "All Staff" group have read access (probably a PowerShell script to automate all of this?!), then map a drive or place a shortcut to that share somewhere. If your not mapping directly to the folder, enable access based emulation on the share so that the Student would only see their created folder, not all the other Students which cleans up things. (I haven't looked at O365 yet, so there may be something better and easier that can do the same job). Then, just map the share on the Staff users, customising this to your needs (e.g. Departments only get their own Student folders) etc to fit your needs.

 

Just my thoughts.

 

Let me know what you decide on.

 

Cheers,

Tom

[mikes]

We give the teachers read access here; we mapped the root of the student work folder to the teachers as a drive. There aren't many teachers with the technical ability to navigate through the subfolders of the various year groups etc; so they mostly end up getting the pupils to e-mail the work to them anyway (via a dept handin address)

One caveat is that the folders show up as "My Documents" instead of 16usera due to the desktop.ini, but there are ways around this.

 

I have no reason not to give the teachers write access to the student's home folders, but we decided against it for all the hassle it would cause e.g. teachers accidentally trackpad dragging files away etc. Nobody has asked me for write access anyway.

[ozydave]

We only give teachers read access.

I'm sure the exam bodies would not be happy with teachers editing students files and hay possibly doing the work to obtain good grades and thus making the school look better

[FN-GM]

Look at it from the other side. Teachers have access to work written in exercise books, why not home areas. Yes its physically written and hard to adjust, but read only permissions would emulate that.

[localzuk]

Another read only access setup here.

 

I've not come across a reason for teachers to have direct write access to files yet. If they need to distribute files to pupils, they have a pupil shared drive they can put them on. If they need to send a file to an individual pupil, they can use our VLE.

[Sagima]

Read only here also

[angrycomputingteacher]

I have no access for teachers although if any teachers do require access to student documents then they can ask me and I can get the files that they require.

[HBPS]

i give all staff full access to student docs. were primary btw the staff for the older kids drop the LO (learning objective) with resource links in to a specific folder in the kids user area all within a unit folder keeps them focused and on track.

[3s-gtech]

Another here with read-only access for teacher, we also have a hand-in drive which is write-only for students. I've never had a request for write access, it's an odd request really.

[Rob_D]

At my last place (primary school) we gave the teachers read access. Where I am now (secondary school) we don't - and are currently moving over to onedrive/sharepoint where we (officially) couldn't even if we wanted to.

 

Although at the primary, I never got the impression the home drive access was used that much. Teachers were much more inclined to have the children use shared folders for their "school work".

[LeMarchand]

At my last place (primary school) we gave the teachers read access.

 

 

I never got the impression the home drive access was used that much. Teachers were much more inclined to have the children use shared folders for their "school work".

 

Ditto this, especially the last part!

 

Can't see why teachers shouldn't have access to a student's folder - the kids shouldn't be storing anything private using school provided folders.

[GuyJD]

Surely the students home drive is a working folder and the student should be able to have their work full of edits and notes, what if the teacher looks at the work in the home folder and the work is marked in an unfinished state?

 

Personally I'd go with having the 'Hand in' share for finished work.

[abaxter2]

Thank you all for all the replies - my school is primary / secondary and sixth form, we are on a domain and users, staff / pupils have their own logins / own home drive / shared drives etc, we also use userlock to only allow one log on at a time. We also have a school policy regarding access / passwords etc.

 

I have said to the teacher and my SLT that I would give read access and that for the future I would like to create a "hand in folder" via the network or office 365 but the teacher does not seem happy with this suggestion and keeps pushing for full access, I am if truth be told a little shocked at this request and that my SLT are even allowing this to be discussed.

 

Thank you all for taking the time to post as it is good hear what other schools are doing and to make sure that I am not way off in my thinking.

[pete]

Look at it from the other side. Teachers have access to work written in exercise books, why not home areas. Yes its physically written and hard to adjust, but read only permissions would emulate that.

 

Yes, but (to continue your analogy) teachers have to ask for the exercise books to be handed in, they don't get to go rooting through schoolbags on the off-chance there's geography homework in there.

 

The onus is on the student to submit their work in a timely manner and ensure that the work handed in is the correct document, rather than the teacher wading through their homedir and guessing.

[FN-GM]

Yes, but (to continue your analogy) teachers have to ask for the exercise books to be handed in, they don't get to go rooting through schoolbags on the off-chance there's geography homework in there.

 

The onus is on the student to submit their work in a timely manner and ensure that the work handed in is the correct document, rather than the teacher wading through their homedir and guessing.

 

Depends on how the school operates. In one of our schools, the exercise books are kept in the classrooms and never go in the students bag.

[RichCowell]

ICT Teachers have access to student home drives at mine, but we've got a Submission drive that staff can request a folder in, then students can save work in that teacher's folder, but can't see anyone else's in there, and only that teacher can see everything in there...

 

All files in there are deleted after a week to save it getting cluttered.

 

Works really well for us here, and has removed the need to have a shared are that students can save in.

[AJWhite1970]

Exactly what Rich just said here as well.

Rights were a bit of a pig to setup in the first place but now it's done with groups and we just clean down the drives and change membership each summer and it all automagically works

[elsiegee40]

For exam years, I would think that read only access is the most that should be given.

 

Maybe your exams officer could "seek advice from the examination board". If they have any sense, they won't want to draw attention to the school by doing this and back you on read only.

[sippo]

All staff have full access to student areas as a mapped drive.

 

No issues - most staff don't even know it's there!

 

If they alter students work, that is their issue and nothing to do with me.

[witch]

Me too

[zebulunn]

...the teacher does not seem happy with this suggestion and keeps pushing for full access...

But why though?

You and the staff member should do a list of pros/cons and present it in a short slt meeting.

And make sure the definition of read and 'full access' are clear for all.

[Oaktech]

In my previous school, it was read only with hand in folders as it was a secondary.

 

Currently I'm in a primary federation and it's full access so staff can paste resources to individual students and place copies of group work into individual user folders.

[Hokalus]

With the exception of where special circumstances dictate staff only have read access to student files here for all the reasons already listed.

 

We have made an exception for students who are highly visually impaired, staff can drop resources in to these students home directories which have been modified for their learning requirements.

[p858snake]

Ditto this, especially the last part!

 

Can't see why teachers shouldn't have access to a student's folder - the kids shouldn't be storing anything private using school provided folders.

 

In high school, staff had RO access to our home drives.

 

I can sort of see the argument for students having a "private" storage space when it comes to safeguarding type matters.