Purpose

The policy and procedures below are designed to comply with the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), concerning verification of student identify in distance learning or online learning.

Scope

The policy applies to all students in all credit-bearing, online/distance education courses offered by AVU, beginning with the application for admission and continuing through a student's graduation, transfer or withdrawal from the University. All methods of verifying the student's identity must protect the privacy of the student.

Policy

All credit-bearing courses and programs offered through online learning or distance education must verify that the student who register for an online or distance education course or program is the same student that participates and completes the course to receive academic credit.

Procedure

Online Learning/Distance Education

The verification of a student's identity begins at the time of admission and the first course registration. After a student has been through the admission process and is accepted to attend, AVU's Information Technology department is responsible for creating secure, unique login and password for the accepted student using a FERPA compliant procedure.

Both the AVU Office of Admissions and the AVU Office of the Registrar maintain student biographic, demographic, admission and enrollment records in the AVU Student Information System (SIS). Students are assigned a secure, individual username and password upon enrollment at AVU. These assigned identifiers are used to access Populi and Canvas learning management system where students complete and submit coursework and access grade information. Access to the LMS requires valid credentials in addition to an official class registration.

All sensitive data, including FERPA-governed and enrollment related records, are presented to students via encrypted transport methods, predominantly HTTPS. Access to such information requires valid credentials, in addition to authorization controls within the LMS and/or SIS. As noted, authorization controls are primarily dictated by enrollment records within the SIS.

Students may reset their password by visiting the “password reset” link in the Populi Portal, namely https://avu.populiweb.com/. The full procedure and password specifications are contained therein.

Students are responsible for maintaining the security of their login information and password. This information may not be shared or given to anyone other than the person to whom they were assigned. Users are responsible for any use and activity of their account.

All students taking online courses are using Canvas, AVU’s course management system, which requires secure usernames and passwords.

All methods of verifying student identity in distance learning protect the privacy of student information under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).