Can an instructor show a classroom recording that includes student participation to students enrolled in a course that occurs in a later semester or year?

It depends. Under FERPA, this situation must be treated as if the recordings were being shown to a third-party audience, which requires FERPA compliance through use of consents or de-identification of any students depicted. There are several ways to use recordings that might include students’ names or personally identifiable audio, communications, or images:

  1. The instructor can plan the recording so that students (such as those asking questions during a class) are not shown in the video or referred to by name (another way to de-identify the students). One option for lecture-style classes is to first record the lecture, and then afterwards engage in unrecorded student questions and class discussion.

  2. The instructor may obtain individualized FERPA consents from the students in the recording which allow use of this portion of the recordings. This type of consent can be obtained on a case-by-case basis or from all the students at the outset of a class. Consent forms are available here

  3. The instructor can edit the recording to either omit any student who has not consented to the use of their voice or image or to de-identify the student in the recording (which can include avoiding or removing any mention of the student’s name, blurring the student’s image, altering voice recordings, etc.).