Guidelines on student access to student information

Guidelines on student access to student information

Transcripts

On submission of a signed request and payment of the fee, students will receive transcripts of their own academic record.  These transcripts will be marked “Issued to Student”.  Formal records of student achievement, including transcripts and graduation diplomas, will not be provided to the student if the student has an outstanding debt to the university. The Registrar’s or Graduate Studies Office will not provide students with copies of his / her transcripts on file from other institutions.

Grades

The Registrar’s Office and the Graduate Studies Office are responsible for releasing final grades to undergraduate and graduate students respectively. Students can obtain final grades from those offices through secure web access.  Provided the identity of individual students is protected, an instructor may post grades in a public area such as an office door, bulletin board or course web site. See the Guideline for Returning Assignments and Posting Grades.

Evaluative material

Student exams and assignments are personal information and should be returned only to the student who wrote the paper and not to other individuals, unless written permission has been given from the author.
See the Guideline for Returning Assignments and Posting Grades.

Reference letters

Copies of reference letters cannot be released to the student unless the writer has given written permission.

Access to file

A request from a student for access to his/her own file can be responded to informally. Students have the right to inspect their student record (except for personal information that is evaluative or opinion material compiled for purposes such as admission to an academic program or eligibility for awards) and to challenge contents which they believe to be inaccurate.

The file must be reviewed first by the office/individual with responsibility for the security and confidentiality of the file to determine if it contains any information that might not be appropriate to disclose (e.g., third party personal information).  It is expected that the student will view the file in the office with responsibility for security and confidentiality of the file and under the supervision of an employee of that office.  No records may be removed from the file. 

Where a hard copy file is not maintained or is incomplete, the student may have supervised access to his/her on-line record.