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.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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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

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