Student directory running after system repairs

Maria Nann

Kent State’s online student phone directory, which had been down since the end of April, is up and running again as of Monday.

Lin Danes, manager of electronic communications and Web content services, said repairs have been made to the site.

The work done to the directory comes with the university’s switch over to Banner and “pulling the data,” Danes said.

“We wanted to make sure it was pulling data from the right places,” she said.

Barbara Boltz, director of Enrollment Data and Support Services, said another issue the university was having with the directory involved student confidentiality.

“Students have a right to not want their directory information to be made public,” she said. “(They) need to request to do that.”

Boltz said when students request their information in the directory to be confidential, an indicator is placed on their records. In the old system, those indicators were there, but with Banner, the files were not transferring.

Boltz said the university wanted to be careful with students’ information, so as not to violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

“We did not want to get into any issues with FERPA,” she said. “To avoid it, we just took it down.”

The Web site, which until Monday had a notice saying updates would be available by June 27, is now working again.

Contact principal reporter Maria Nann at [email protected].