Ability to keep reviews after deleting old students

60 votes

It would be nice for future students to be able to see reviews from my previous classes who have read some of my books. As of now, deleting student names (when they were no longer in my class) deletes their reviews, so new students don't have any reviews to read when choosing books.

Not planned Suggested by: Ashley F (14 Jan, '20) • Upvoted: 19 Jul, '23 • Comments: 4

Comments: 4

21 Jan, '20
Sean Patterson Admin
Hi Ashley,

Unfortunately we are likely to continue removing reviews tied to deleted students. The reason is because of privacy concerns with personally identifiable data. Since the reviews are free-text, it means that students could potentially put in personally identifiable information (like their name). We want to make sure that when you delete a student, all of their identifiable information is deleted. This means reviews, too. We do plan on keeping the ratings, though.
06 Feb, '20
Carrie Shevlin
What if teachers had the option to moderate a review before it's posted? (This may already be a feature, I'm new to the site.) If teachers removed identifying information? I ask because I have reluctant readers who will pick up a book because a classmate recommended it.
06 Feb, '20
Sean Patterson Admin
Hi Carrie,

Currently teachers must approve reviews before they are posted. Thank you for using Booksource Classroom!
15 Apr, '20
Karen Molloy
Suggesting to those looking to keep reviews-- create a "dummy student" each year named "Former Student" and cut and paste reviews from actual students to put in them? I suppose if it was possible to change students' names to "Former Student" automatically, that would be helpful