On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 12:42 AM, Angus Mann <angusm...@pobox.com> wrote:
> We're building a large site for a school district, to be used by both >> students and parents. When a student logs in, they gain some access to >> the >> site, and when a parent logs in, they gain access to other sections on the >> site. That's all fine and dandy, it's the actual registration process >> that >> I'm having a hard time with. >> >> How to determine if a registration is a student or a parent. Do I simply >> give them a check box (or other method) to pick from (student or parent) >> and >> hope they're being honest? Has anyone here have to deal with that in the >> past, and would you be willing to give me some ideas of what you did? >> Thanks! >> >> It sounds like it really doesn't matter how you do it. Nothing bad > happens if a student registers as a parent or vice-versa and the only person > inconvenienced is the end-user. I would just take some simple steps to ask > the person if they want to view as a student or as a parent. Have you > considered the option of just letting people register, and then allowing > them to select a radio-button labelled "Show me information important to > parents" or "Show me information relevant to students" or "Show me > information relevant to both". > > Some users might quite legitimately want to see both sets of content. > > That will be 2 cents, please. > > > > > > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > Just be cautious with FERPA guidelines (which can actually get quite confusing) if you're doing this in the US. For instance, normally a child's name is considered "Directory information", or that is, information that a school can disseminate without consent. However, this requires that the school provided the parents an opportunity to opt-out of such disclosures. As a developer of some educational games AND the husband of an elementary teacher, I realize FERPA can be quite challenging at times. I point this out just in case the process you considered included presenting a drop-down of student names or anything like that in the publicly accessible interface. Here's the links just in case you haven't already read-up (that is, if this even applies to you): http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html If you've already researched this or you're not in the US, I apologize for the irrelevant info. Happy coding, Adam -- Nephtali: PHP web framework that functions beautifully http://nephtaliproject.com
