FERPA and Student Accounts

FERPA

Georgia Southern is covered by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) which is designed to protect the student’s rights with regard to educational records maintained by the institution. The intent of this legislation is to protect the rights of students and to ensure the privacy and accuracy of education records.

If a student is attending a postsecondary institution – at any age – the rights under FERPA have transferred to the student. In a situation where a student is enrolled in both a high school and a postsecondary institution, the two schools may exchange information on that student. If the student is under 18, the parents still retain the rights under FERPA at the high school and may inspect and review any records sent by the postsecondary institution to the high school.

Unless students complete a FERPA Consent form allowing parents/guardians to have access to their educational records, University officials will not be able to discuss student records.

Students may complete a FERPA Consent form to authorize the release of their educational record information to specific individuals named in the release by completing the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) Consent form in the Student’s Personal Setting menu in their MyGeorgiaSouthern account. Students may also rescind or alter their FERPA form at any time through their MyGeorgiaSouthern account.

For more information on FERPA at Georgia Southern, please click here.

If your student would like to add you to their Family Portal, they can refer to these instructions.

Appropriate Use Policy

While setting up their MyGeorgiaSouthern accounts, all students acknowledge and accept the Information Technology Appropriate Use Policy, which can be accessed here.

A particularly important excerpt from the Appropriate Use Policy has been included below, which details information about who has authorization to Georgia Southern accounts.

Please note that it is against University policy for anyone besides students to access student accounts, including MyGeorgiaSouthern, Folio, and email accounts.

The Appropriate Use Policy dictates that:

• Misrepresenting a person’s identity or relationship to the University when obtaining access privileges or using technology is prohibited.
• Use of any university information technology resource is restricted to those having proper authorization to use that particular resource. It is a violation of the law and university policy to assist in, encourage, or conceal from authorities any unauthorized use, or attempted unauthorized use, of any of the University’s computers or network facilities.
• Passwords to any information technology resource shall only be issued to authorized users. Password recipients are responsible for the protection of their access credentials (passwords) and shall not distribute them to other users.
• Only those persons with proper authorization shall modify or reconfigure any university information technology resource or network facility.

Last updated: 9/20/2024