Question about retention of student work

[jerseyjay]

Since the semester is starting, I am in the process of cleaning out my files to make room for material for this semester. One of the biggest occupants of space are students' exams and essays.

Which made me think about document retention policies. I have two questions.

First, I am curious what other people's practices are. I have taught at schools with all kinds of policies. My current school has no official policy. Since i am a full timer with an office, I keep essays and exams for all students for one year. After that, I purge them (except for the senior theses, which I never through away). I also keep my grade book (used to be physical, now it is in the CMS) until it disappears. The official grade for the course, of course, is kept by the registrar's office.

I once taught at a community college that required submitting a copy of the final grade book and a final exam and then keeping students' graded work for six years. (In a school that theoretically only took two years to graduate). Since I was an adjunct, I have to say I was less than religious about this requirement, especially when I stopped working there.

This brings me to my second question. It is my understanding that the reason for keeping student work is in case there is a grade dispute. I have had student submit missing work, or try to submit missing work for last semester's course, and maybe once or twice the semester before that. So it is useful to have a record of why a student got a D. But I have never had a student try to this for anything much older than this. Has there ever been a grade dispute requiring pulling out an exam from several years ago?

(I did have a former student email me--and several other professors--asking to change their course grade from three years ago so that their GPA would go up a few hundredths so they would qualify for a teaching job. But their argument was not that I had misgraded them, but if I would change their grade it would be good for them. Since my school has a policy that you cannot change a grade once a student graduates, it was easy to deal with. But having their old material--which I did not have--would not have helped.)

[Hegemony]

Our place urges us to keep student work for a year. I have been teaching since dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I have never had a grade dispute nor any reason to consult any of those old papers or tests.

[arcturus]

My current school has a policy that we are expected to keep student work for at least 3 years. However, most of the student work is submitted and stored electronically now (within the LMS), so I do not have to think about its storage. For my other classes, where there is physical paper involved, I return the work to the students during the semester, so I also don't have to think about it.

I do select a few examples of student work each term to add to my professional portfolio (i.e., documentation for promotion), but these I scan (if paper) and upload into a dedicated folder on my computer.

[Ruralguy]

I keep paper work for about a year usually, but sometimes later if I think I need it for an assessment cycle.  Although I have sometimes kept things longer, I don't feel the need to. When I moved offices for the first time in 23 years, I threw out anything older than a year.
And yes, the primary reason is for grade disputes, or possibly even "right to see how work was graded," without any obvious outright claim of unfair grading.

[Liquidambar]

We have to keep final exams for a year.  I think that's our allowable time for grade appeals plus some padding.  When VAPs leave, our office staff stores their old finals in department filing cabinets for the appropriate time, or at least that's what's supposed to happen.  I assume the office staff would also do this for any adjunct who asked.

[Parasaurolophus]

One year, and it's never mattered.

At my PhD program, I was zealous about adhering to the 2-year policy, and I routinely filed/purged the cabinets where exams and things were stored. Not a single other person cared one whit, including the admin staff. Most people just tossed everything as soon as the semester was over. AFAIK, it was never an issue.

[sinenomine]

I used to keep hardcopy papers and exams for three years; now that we collect everything digitally, my storage space is opening up. But I did have one instance where I was able to show a student exam so the academic integrity folks could compare handwriting and nab the student for having a friend take their place in another class.

I keep grade books permanently — and continue to use them as a backup to the CMS just in case. Many years ago a spineless administrator allowed a student to appeal a grade from a course taken three years earlier; my grade book gave me all the evidence needed to counter the student's claims.

[Caracal]

It always seemed a little strange. Can you really file a grade appeal two years after you took the class? Wouldn't thirty days into the next semester be a reasonable deadline? Why would anyone need longer?

[sinenomine]

It always seemed a little strange. Can you really file a grade appeal two years after you took the class? Wouldn't thirty days into the next semester be a reasonable deadline? Why would anyone need longer?

My school has a 6-week restriction for grade appeals. The three years later appeal I mentioned above slipped through thanks to an inept administrator who wouldn't follow policies.

[clean]

If you return the exams to students, there is nothing to retain!  You can keep an electronic copy of the exam forever.

Some time ago we had some sort of memo about requiring that we keep the (memory at work here)  Record Copy of State Records, and we needed permission to destroy any such records. 
Meaning that they wanted us to keep everything, and then ask permission to shred what was 'old'. 

I remember avoiding the problem by making sure that everything was returned, which became a non issue when we went online for COVID as I didnt generate paper to someday shred.

[pgher]

If you return the exams to students, there is nothing to retain!  You can keep an electronic copy of the exam forever.

Some time ago we had some sort of memo about requiring that we keep the (memory at work here)  Record Copy of State Records, and we needed permission to destroy any such records. 
Meaning that they wanted us to keep everything, and then ask permission to shred what was 'old'. 

I remember avoiding the problem by making sure that everything was returned, which became a non issue when we went online for COVID as I didnt generate paper to someday shred.

That is my goal every semester, and I'm doomed from the start: when would I return the final exam?

[mamselle]

If it's a physical copy, a friend solved that by telling people if they wanted it back, they just had to bring an SASE with them to the test and turn it in with their exam / term paper / final project / whatever.

Once graded, he dropped the ones who wanted theirs back in the mail, and that was that.

M.

[clean]

Mail them to the Student's home address!!

My PHD school office mate did that.  It increased attendance!  He returned exams after the test day.  Then brought the  unclaimed ones the next 2 classes. 

then he would mail them to the student's official address with a note that since the student has missed the last 3 classes, that he hopes that the student feels better soon.  Of course, it is very likely that the student's 'home address' has not been updated, so it goes to the student's Parents' address!!  Parents then see an official looking, big document from school, and open it to tell the student what they got in the mail, only to see what is likely a low test grade and a note that they missed 3 MORE classes! 

EIther this prompts students to attend, OR update their current address!!

Brilliant!!

[jerseyjay]

If it's a physical copy, a friend solved that by telling people if they wanted it back, they just had to bring an SASE with them to the test and turn it in with their exam / term paper / final project / whatever.

Once graded, he dropped the ones who wanted theirs back in the mail, and that was that.

M.

This was the case when I went to university. I did this for a while, but got tired of having to explain what an SASE was. I also got students who would give me an envelope with $20 worth of postage for a blue book.

Now many of my exams are online so there is nothing to hand back.

For papers and final exams, though, what I usually do is to tell the students that I would be happy to go over their final work in my office. This saves me the time of writing comments in their exams and papers that they never read. My experience is that once the semester ends, even the most grade-conscious students stop caring about what grade they got on each individual assignment unless there really is a mistake on my part.

I got the impression, however, at the schools I have taught at, that the need to retain student paper had some legalistic justification. But it is rare for a student to want to argue about a grade from last semester. I have never had a student complain about a grade from a year or more ago.

[Caracal]

If it's a physical copy, a friend solved that by telling people if they wanted it back, they just had to bring an SASE with them to the test and turn it in with their exam / term paper / final project / whatever.

Once graded, he dropped the ones who wanted theirs back in the mail, and that was that.

M.

This was the case when I went to university. I did this for a while, but got tired of having to explain what an SASE was. I also got students who would give me an envelope with $20 worth of postage for a blue book.

Now many of my exams are online so there is nothing to hand back.

For papers and final exams, though, what I usually do is to tell the students that I would be happy to go over their final work in my office. This saves me the time of writing comments in their exams and papers that they never read. My experience is that once the semester ends, even the most grade-conscious students stop caring about what grade they got on each individual assignment unless there really is a mistake on my part.

I got the impression, however, at the schools I have taught at, that the need to retain student paper had some legalistic justification. But it is rare for a student to want to argue about a grade from last semester. I have never had a student complain about a grade from a year or more ago.

Yeah, I tell students to email me if they want comment on final papers. I usually get one student a year who writes me, and then I just reread the paper a week later and type them out.