Student Record Privacy

1. Purpose

This guideline is to define the designation of custodians of student records, establish parameters for appropriate use of said records and ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

2. Area of application

This covers regulations for educational (or academic) records and student directory information, as an addition to the VinUniversity information sharing policy.

3. Content

3.1 University principles

1. The Office of the Registrar is designated as custodian of academic records of students. The Office of the Registrar is accountable for gathering and maintaining accurate data from students, agencies, institutions, and faculty, and for providing appropriate information, on request, to the student or those persons or institutions designated by the student. Since the Office of the Registrar is the official repository of student records, all requests for information regarding students should be routed through it.
2. Unless authorized by the student or their legal guardian, if necessary, educational records may not be given by any methods of sharing information (including hard-copy, electronic or verbal means) to anyone else.
3. VinUniversity Information Sharing policy applies to all student records. Furthermore, only directory information may be used for legitimate reasons without written permission from the student. For reference, the directory information includes name, residing address, telephone number, hometown, dates of attendance, college and class status, major, degrees earned, and enrollment status. Students may formally request the University Registrar to restrict disclosure even of directory information. The legitimate reasons include verifying information when using third-party services, releasing information to external agencies and government department/agencies for enrollment and award verification purposes, analyzing student information for benchmarking, analysis and quality assurance purposes and reporting, reporting enrolment information as required by law, etc.
4. Information from student educational records may be shared only with those University employees, who have a “legitimate educational reason” for the information (for example: performing advisory, instructional, supervisory, or administrative duties for the University). Requests for records for all purposes should be directed to the Office of the Registrar, which will evaluate whether such requests are in accord with Vietnam law and institutional policy. In general, senior University administrators can have access to student records within their domain of authority. For example:

• • President, Provost, and University Registrar have access to all student records
  • Dean and Vice Dean have access to all student records in their College
  • Program Director(s) have access to students enrolled in their programs and courses
  • Academic Advisor can have access for students they advise (if necessary)

3.2 Specific principles to Instructor (full-time and adjunct faculty members), Teaching Assistant, and Academic Advisor.

1. Specific course grades are available to students online (Learning management system – LMS Canvas) as soon as they have been posted by the course instructor. Grade point average and student’s academic standing are available to students online (Student Information System – SIS) as soon as they have been posted by the Registrar. Students should never have access to the scores or grades of others.
2. Each instructor is accountable for ensuring the confidentiality of all student educational records and will not post or display, lists of student’s grades in personally identifiable forms, including the student’s name or student identification numbers. However, anonymized statistics may be posted for internal use at VinUni.
3. Instructors and Teaching Assistants are not allowed to share student grades with anyone except the Registrar’s office. No faculty member or administrator is authorized to directly ask any instructor or teaching assistant the grades of students. If they need access to student grades, they need to request the Registrar’s office.
4. Instructors should store all student records at VinUni’s authorized computer and information management system such as Canvas, SIS. Duration of student record storage will follow MOET’s guidelines.
5. In such cases, two (or more) instructors need to exchange information about the student’s performance to investigate issues of plagiarism, the truth of declaration by students on certain issues such as project deadlines, or reasons for absences, they should consult with the Program Director or the Registrar.