Access to Student Records
In keeping with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Loyola University New Orleans is committed to protecting the privacy of student education records. Student information cannot legally be released to anyone except the student themselves without explicit consent by the student. This includes all elements of the student’s educational record, such as registration status, class schedule, room and board, financial aid, and billing information. A parent or guardian must be explicitly authorized by their student to receive access to this student information, and the authorization must indicate specifically what is to be released.
As a result of our transition from our legacy records system to LORA (Loyola Online Records Access) Self-Service, students will now be able to fully manage this authorization process directly in their own student self-service account. There are two ways in which students can authorize the institution to provide information to parents and guardians: by granting proxy access and by creating a student records release. Forms for both of these processes can be found in Self-Service under “User Options.”
A student may grant proxy access to their parent or guardian, which will allow Loyola to create a LORA Self-Service account for the parents or guardian. The authorized proxy user account will be able to see elements of the student’s educational record such as course grades and financial aid awards, selected by the student, exactly as they appear in the student’s own account. Loyola does not interpret the existence of a proxy account for a given individual as an authorization to disclose any additional educational information beyond what the proxy user is able to view for themselves in LORA Self-Service.
To authorize the release of educational information beyond what a proxy user can access, a student may grant a student records release. The individuals to whom a student authorizes the university to release student records may be the same or different from any authorized proxy users, and an individual does not need to be a proxy user for a student to authorize records release to that person. University personnel will not directly disclose student information to any person without an active records release.
Students received detailed instructions for how to assign a proxy and/or how to authorize student records release of information via email in their Loyola email accounts today.
