Carleton has made its student grade data public, and possibly set a precedent for other Ontario universities, after losing a freedom of information battle with the Ottawa Citizen over the records.
The university initially refused to release the data, which does not identify students by name or student number, but lists the number of students getting a specific grade in classes from 1999 to 2011.
Glen McGregor, the Citizen reporter who made the request, took the university to the office of Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner, where an adjudicator ordered the university to release the data.
“[The ruling] basically supported everything we argued in our briefing, and rejected pretty much everything Carleton said,” McGregor said. “It was a complete slap down on them.”
Carleton had argued that releasing the data would violate student privacy, and also jeopardize the university’s economic competitiveness.
In submissions the university made, quoted in the information and privacy commissioner’s decision, it said that if the data showed Carleton was a tougher school because it awarded fewer “As” it would lead to a drop in admissions.
However, if the data showed Carleton awarded more “As,” the university said this would hurt its reputation by making it look like an easy school and harm its ability to attract program and research funding.
“Instead of a fulsome consideration of all factors, choice for students may be reduced to a comparison of the number of “As” awarded in a particular program at a particular school,” the university submitted.
“This notion that people would be more or less likely to choose Carleton if their grades were somehow divergent from the norm in the province . . . then the university has an obligation to publish that,” McGregor said. “We should require all universities to publish that, so everybody’s making that choice with the same information.”
Carleton is not releasing grade data for typically-smaller graduate classes, or any classes with less than 15 students, so individual students cannot be identified.
“It was our responsibility to protect all of the students here and what we considered to be their personal information,” Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act co-ordinator for Carleton Robert Moher said. “Students come to Carleton and pay thousands of dollars a year to come study here and better themselves and earn these grades, so it was our duty to try to protect their information.”
Moher said the university had not made a decision yet on whether to start proactively releasing grades, but it was something they would address moving forward.
Both the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University publish their anonymized student grade data, something that bolstered McGregor’s case.
According to the Citizen, Carleton hired Ottawa law firm Emond Harnden LLP to make submissions. Meanwhile, McGregor represented himself and wrote his own submissions.
McGregor is a prominent data journalist who recently shared the Michener Award, one of Canada’s top journalism honours, with Stephen Maher of Postmedia News for their investigation into fraudulent robocalls in the 2011 federal election.
McGregor said he is currently analysing the data to find patterns or trends that may eventually lead to a story, and that he has submitted a similar request for grade records to the University of Ottawa.
