Legal question

[W4RP3D]

Ive just left school a few weeks back and have decovered that all my data saved on the school network has been deleted without informing me therefore i cant download it though the web like i used to. I wouldnt normally mind but there was a great deal of work that I will nead next year. I no the school archieve all the data on the network and i have sent them an email asking for them to restore it.

Because the technitions are lazy ****** my bet is they dont.

Im just wondering if i have anything legal to stand on as a threat??

[stingwray]

Probably not, and it wouldn't be worth threatening them with anything legal.

I'm sorry to hear they deleted it, my old school keeps work of previous students for 3 years after they have left now that they have some decent storage capability.

I know schools have to keep backups of work, usually on Tape drives but they usually only go back one week with an image taken everynight at midnight and then the same tape used last monday would be rewritten the next monday. So if they deleted it within the last week then they might have it.

If not then I doubt they will be able to return your work to them.

Also are you sure they have deleted your work, not just stopped you accessing the work now that you have left, or that they have taken one/some of the servers of line for maintence?

I suppose the morale of this story is keep your own backups and don't trust any network administrators.

Also if they need persuading, a nice box of biscuits will often do the trick with any technicians.

[VaKo]

Check the schools policy on data retention, if they mention deleteing student shares after the year is finished then you have no recourse. If they don't explicitly mention that data retention is the students problem, and that they will wipe your shares, you might have a case. But only due to a loop hole.

Your best bet, if the techs are useless, is to aproach your local school board/whatever (i'm guessing that your teachers will be on vacation) and deal with them, nothing like voices from on high to motivate people lol.

Have you left that school now? Because they might expect you to have "moved your stuff out" already.

[tabath]

From an ex-teacher. You haven't a legal foot to stand on. One would imagine though knowing how good *wink*the It techs were at some of the schools I worked at that the data will still be about

[manuel]

All that our laws and regulations say (that I know of) is that we have to keep files associated with public records. This basically means that student's personal work is not necessarily a matter of public records. Teacher/staff files are however considered to some extent public because if someone wanted to challenge the validity of a test or something of the like, it could be considered public record.

I'm not sure of other schools, but we don't have to keep individual files/student works for any period of time past the current year. The only data that is legally necessary to backup are files on students, such as grades, discipline records, etc, which are already handled though teacher gradebooks and other files kept in the offices. Even some data is not necessary to keep for extremely long periods of time.

Some schools may store the files for their students from year to year as a courtesy, rather than a necessity.

So in my opinion regardless of them stating it or not, if you did not back it up or specifically ask the IT department, its not the IT department's problem.

Of course I am not a lawyer, and I don't know school law that well, but I'd have to say you're out of luck.

A school network admin,

Manuel