A trip to a class Web site has replaced walks across campus to check test scores for many Iowa State students.

Students say they appreciate the convenience of having test and assignment scores posted on the Web, but others say there may be some concerns about security.

Some professors post partial Social Security numbers to identify students’ test scores, similar to the postings that are placed in building hallways and office doors.

Other instructors require students to have a user identification and a password to log on to a class Web site. Such systems, including ClassNet, only allow students to view their own grades.

Alex Olson, freshman in agricultural business, said he logs on to the Web site for his Animal Ecology 120 class to check his progress in the course.

“I have an ID and a password that I just type in and all my scores, tests, daily work and all those grades are stuck up there,” he said.

Olson said he only has access to his own scores. He said the convenience of checking scores without trekking across campus is one benefit of having grades posted online.

“I can just jump on there at anytime and see my latest grades,” he said. “I don’t have to go over to some building like Science II and try to find the grades posted. I can be at home at midnight and just jump on the Web and see how bad or good I’m doing.”

Russell Lavery, assistant professor in physics and astronomy, has been posting the grades for his Astronomy 150 class on the Web for about one year.

Lavery said he posts a list of partial Social Security numbers and scores on the class Web site. All students are able to see the complete list.

“It’s easier for students to have access than it is for students to have them posted on the bulletin board,” he said.

Lavery posts the scores for about 120 students in Astronomy 150, as well as the test scores for the 70 members of his Astronomy 120 recitation section.

Posting Social Security numbers on the Web, even when some digits are deleted, could be potentially dangerous, said Dan Viall, senior in management information systems.

Viall, who served as a student member of the Access and Instruction Subcommittee of the Computer Advisory Committee in 1998-99, said deriving a valid Social Security number from a six-digit partial ID number would be possible.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal when people were posting grades on walls of buildings, but the Internet poses new challenges because of its global accessibility,” he said.

“Even by restricting the first three digits, you can run into a problem because a lot of Iowa State students are from Iowa, and there’s only about nine or 10 three-digit prefixes for Iowa,” Viall said.

Kathy Jones, registrar for ISU, said the university policy states that grades can be posted in public locations, but the name or entire Social Security number cannot be used.

“The policy itself doesn’t speak to what portion of the Social Security number may be posted,” she said. “They should use the smallest number of digits possible.”

Although Web-posting is being used with increasing frequency for class grades, some professors still are struggling to get their classes online.

Kari Beth Krieger, graduate assistant in zoology and genetics who teaches Zoology 155, said she has been fighting with software this semester in her quest to post grades online.

“I don’t have a good publishing program,” Krieger said. “It’s basically a software issue for me now.”

She said time also is a factor as to why grades for her course currently are not posted.

“It takes time to get files converted and put up,” she said.

“I’d like to get the whole spreadsheet up with what grades I have so far, but if it’s going to be this much of a hassle every time, I probably won’t do it,” Krieger said.