university assignment grades

Explanation of Grading System

Grades based upon the following system of marking are the only authorized grades to be used on the Official Class Roll and Grade Report Form.

Undergraduate Grade Points

• Letter grades of A, B, C, D, and F are used.
• Pluses and minuses may be assigned to grades of B and C.
• Minus may be assigned to an A, and plus may be assigned to a D.
• Temporary grades of IN and AB do not affect grade point average.
• Courses with a grade ( or notation ) of LP, PS, SP, BE, W or PL are ignored in establishing the quality point average.

Grade points are assigned as follows:

Grades of AB, FA, IN, PS, SP, and W are assigned as explained in the Undergraduate Grade Definitions area.

Undergraduate Grade Definitions

The following definitions will be used as a guide for the assignment of undergraduate grades.

A Mastery of course content at the highest level of attainment that can reasonably be expected of students at a given stage of development. The A grade states clearly that the students have shown such outstanding promise in the aspect of the discipline under study that he/she may be strongly encouraged to continue.

B Strong performance demonstrating a high level of attainment for a student at a given stage of development. The B grade states that the student has shown solid promise in the aspect of the discipline under study.

C A totally acceptable performance demonstrating an adequate level of attainment for a student at a given stage of development. The C grade states that, while not yet showing unusual promise, the student may continue to study in the discipline with reasonable hope of intellectual development.

D A marginal performance in the required exercises demonstrating a minimal passing level of attainment. A student has given no evidence of prospective growth in the discipline; an accumulation of D grades should be taken to mean that the student would be well advised not to continue in the academic field.

F For whatever reason, an unacceptable performance. The F grade indicates that the student’s performance in the required exercises has revealed almost no understanding of the course content. A grade of F should warrant an advisor’s questioning whether the student may suitably register for further study in the discipline before remedial work is undertaken.

AB Absent from final examination, but could have passed if exam taken. This is a temporary grade that converts to an F* after the last day of final exams for the next semester unless the student makes up the exam.

FA Failed and absent from exam. The FA grade is given when the undergraduate student did not attend the exam, and could not pass the course regardless of performance on the exam. This would be appropriate for a student that never attended the course or has excessive absences in the course, as well as missing the exam.

IN Work incomplete. This is a temporary grade that converts to F* after the last day of final exams into the next semester unless the student makes up the incomplete work.

PS Students who declare a course on the Pass/Fail option will receive the grade of PS (pass) when a letter grade of A through C is recorded on the official grade roster. An F under the Pass/Fail option counts as hours attempted and is treated in the same manner as F grades earned under any other grading basis. Instructors are not informed of which students have elected the Pass/Fail option and must assign the regular letter grade which will be converted to PS/F.

*Prior to Fall 2020 the PS grade was used when a student would have earned a letter grade of A through D and the LP grade was not used.

LP Low passing grade for a course using the Pass/Fail grading basis option, when an undergraduate student would have earned a letter grade of C-, D+, or D. Effective special grading accommodation for Fall 2020, Spring 2021, and later approved as a permanent grade.

NR This symbol is recorded as a notation for courses where grades are not recorded, such as when a faculty member has not submitted grades by the posted deadline for the term.

F* The Office of the University Registrar automatically converts the temporary grades of AB and IN to F* when the time limit for a grade change on these temporary grades has expired. The deadline for submitting a grade change for an AB or IN to an undergraduate student record is the last day of final exams in the following term.

Note: grade lapse is run for undergraduate students in Fall and Spring terms only. Temporary grades for summer terms are lapsed in the subsequent Fall term.

SP Satisfactory Progress ( Authorized only for the first portion of an Honors Program .)

W Withdrew passing. Entered when a student drops after the eight-week drop period.

NE No grade expected. This symbol is recorded as a notation for courses that are not graded, such as placeholders and some zero-credit courses.

Graduate Grades Definitions

All master’s and doctoral programs administered through The Graduate School operate under the same grading system. The graduate grading scale in use at UNC-Chapel Hill is unique in that it cannot be converted to the more traditional ABC grading scale. Graduate students do not carry a numerical GPA.

The following definitions will be used as a guide for the assignment of Graduate grades.

H – High Pass

P – Pass

L – Low Pass

F – Fail

IN – Work Incomplete A temporary grade that converts to an F* unless the grade is replaced with a permanent grade by the last day of classes for the same term one year later.

F* The Office of the University Registrar automatically converts the temporary grades of AB and IN to F* when the time limit for a grade change on these temporary grades has expired. The deadline for submitting a grade change for an AB or IN to a graduate student record is the last day of classes for the same term one year later.

AB – Absent from Final Examination A temporary grade that converts to an F* unless the grade is replaced with a permanent grade by the last day of classes for the same term one year later.

NOTE:    Graduate students enrolled in courses numbered 099 and below ( prior to Fall 2006 ) and 399 and below ( starting with Fall 2006 ) should receive undergraduate grades.

Law School Grade Points

Effective August 2007 , letter grades of A, B, C, D, and F are used. Pluses and minuses may be assigned, but there is no grade of D-.

In rare instances, a grade of A+ is awarded in recognition of exceptionally high performance. Some designated courses are graded on a pass-fail basis. Students may not change a graded course to a pass/fail course.

From Fall 1993 – August 2007 , grades were assigned on a numerical scale ranging from 4.0 to 0.0. A grade of .7 will be considered the lowest passing grade. In rare instances, a grade of 4.3 may be awarded in recognition of exceptionally high performance.

Law School Grade Definitions

IN – Work Incomplete

AB – Absent from Final Examination

PS – Passing grade for course using Pass-Fail grading

F – Failed

Pharmacy Professional Program ( PHARMD ) Grade Definitions

Effective Fall 1997 Semester for Professional Pharmacy ( PHARMD ) students:

H – Clear Excellence

HP – Above Average

P – Entirely Satisfactory

LP – Below Average

L – Low Passing

Adopted in 1997, and amended in 2001 to eliminate +/- grading for all cohorts admitted to the Doctor of Pharmacy (professional degree) program in or after Fall 2002.

Classroom & Laboratory Courses Grade Definitions

The following definitions will be used as a guide for the assignment of Classroom & Laboratory Courses grades.

A – Clear Excellence

B – High Level of Achievement

C – Satisfactory Level of Achievement

Clinical Courses Grade Definitions

The following definitions will be used as a guide for the assignment of Clinical Courses grades.

All Courses Grade Definitions

The following definitions will be used as a guide for the assignment of All Courses grades.

F – Failed, Unacceptable Level of Achievement

A temporary grade; converts to an “F*” unless replaced with a permanent grade by the last day of classes for the same term one year later OR at the end of the term in which the course is next taught.

A temporary grade; converts to an F* unless replaced with a permanent grade after one year OR at the end of the term in which the course is next taught.

PS – Passing grade ( for elective courses using pass-fail grading under the University’s PS/D/D+/F option )

NOTE : Graduate Programs in the School of Pharmacy ( MS or PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences ) use the standard University graduate grading scheme. No quality points are assigned to these grades.

Dentistry Professional Program ( DDS ) Grade Definitions

The following definitions will be used as a guide for the assignment of Dentistry Professional Program (DDS) grades.

A – Highest Level of Attainment

B – High Level of Attainment

C – Adequate Level of Attainment

D – Minimal Passing Level of Attainment

F – Failed, Unacceptable Performance

AB – Absent from Exam

PS – Pass

Medical School ( MD ) Grades

The School of Medicine records their own grades and houses the transcripts for students seeking the MD degree.

COVID-19 Grading Accommodations

Please refer to the following resources for information regarding the grading accommodations implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Grading Accommodation Spring/Summer 2020

Grading Accommodation Fall 2020/Spring 2021

Have a question about Grades?

Contact the records team at [email protected]

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Understanding grades

Getting a mark over 50% means that you are beginning to understand the difficult work of your degree. Getting over 60% is excellent because it means you have demonstrated a deep knowledge of your subject to the marker.

You may be used to getting marks of 90–100%, but this is very unlikely to happen at university. Remember that marks in the 50–70% range are perfectly normal. Your grades will improve as you get used to working at university level, and in the style required by your degree subject.

Degree classifications

UK degree classifications are as follows:

• First-Class Honours (First or 1st) (70% and above)
• Upper Second-Class Honours (2:1, 2.i) (60-70%)
• Lower Second-Class Honours (2:2, 2.ii) (50-60%)
• Third-Class Honours (Third or 3rd) (40-50%)

Visit the  Regulations  for further information on degree classifications.

In your first year at university, achieving a grade of 50% or more is a good thing. You can build on your work and improve as you work towards your final grade. Scores above 70% are classed as “First”, so you should be very excited to get a grade in that range.

It is rare for students to achieve grades higher than 90%, though this can happen. Remember as well that you will be surrounded by other highly motivated and capable students, so you may not automatically be top of the class anymore! Don’t worry – lots of your fellow students will be feeling the same, and there is always someone you can talk to about this. Having realistic expectations about your grades will help to reduce the possibility of feeling disappointed with yourself.

How to get a high mark

Before starting a piece of work, make sure you understand the assessment criteria . This may vary depending on your course and the specific piece of work; so ask your tutor if you are unsure.

In general, high marks will be given when you display that you have clearly understood the subject and included relevant detail. The best marks will go to students who show that they have read around the subject and brought their own analysis and criticism to the assignment.

Low marks will be given to a piece of work that suggests you don’t understand the subject or includes too much irrelevant detail. This applies to coursework and exams, so planning your work before you start is always a sensible option. Speak to your tutor if you are unsure about the requirements of a specific piece of work.

Don’t be afraid to ask

You may encounter different classifications, or courses that don’t use exactly the same boundaries. If you need help understanding the exact requirements of your course, contact your tutor for clarification.

When you’ve had your work returned to you, remember to look at the feedback to see where you could improve – this will give you the best chance of achieving a better grade in the future.

Center for Teaching

Grading student work.

Print Version

What Purposes Do Grades Serve?

Developing grading criteria, making grading more efficient, providing meaningful feedback to students.

• Maintaining Grading Consistency in Multi-Sectioned Courses

Minimizing Student Complaints about Grading

Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson identify the multiple roles that grades serve:

• as an  evaluation of student work;
• as a  means of communicating to students, parents, graduate schools, professional schools, and future employers about a student’s  performance in college and potential for further success;
• as a  source of motivation to students for continued learning and improvement;
• as a  means of organizing a lesson, a unit, or a semester in that grades mark transitions in a course and bring closure to it.

Additionally, grading provides students with feedback on their own learning , clarifying for them what they understand, what they don’t understand, and where they can improve. Grading also provides feedback to instructors on their students’ learning , information that can inform future teaching decisions.

Why is grading often a challenge? Because grades are used as evaluations of student work, it’s important that grades accurately reflect the quality of student work and that student work is graded fairly. Grading with accuracy and fairness can take a lot of time, which is often in short supply for college instructors. Students who aren’t satisfied with their grades can sometimes protest their grades in ways that cause headaches for instructors. Also, some instructors find that their students’ focus or even their own focus on assigning numbers to student work gets in the way of promoting actual learning.

Given all that grades do and represent, it’s no surprise that they are a source of anxiety for students and that grading is often a stressful process for instructors.

Incorporating the strategies below will not eliminate the stress of grading for instructors, but it will decrease that stress and make the process of grading seem less arbitrary — to instructors and students alike.

Source: Walvoord, B. & V. Anderson (1998).  Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment . San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.

• Consider the different kinds of work you’ll ask students to do for your course.  This work might include: quizzes, examinations, lab reports, essays, class participation, and oral presentations.
• For the work that’s most significant to you and/or will carry the most weight, identify what’s most important to you.  Is it clarity? Creativity? Rigor? Thoroughness? Precision? Demonstration of knowledge? Critical inquiry?
• Transform the characteristics you’ve identified into grading criteria for the work most significant to you, distinguishing excellent work (A-level) from very good (B-level), fair to good (C-level), poor (D-level), and unacceptable work.

Developing criteria may seem like a lot of work, but having clear criteria can

• save time in the grading process
• make that process more consistent and fair
• communicate your expectations to students
• help you to decide what and how to teach
• help students understand how their work is graded

Sample criteria are available via the following link.

• Analytic Rubrics from the CFT’s September 2010 Virtual Brownbag
• Create assignments that have clear goals and criteria for assessment.  The better students understand what you’re asking them to do the more likely they’ll do it!
• letter grades with pluses and minuses (for papers, essays, essay exams, etc.)
• 100-point numerical scale (for exams, certain types of projects, etc.)
• check +, check, check- (for quizzes, homework, response papers, quick reports or presentations, etc.)
• pass-fail or credit-no-credit (for preparatory work)
• Limit your comments or notations to those your students can use for further learning or improvement.
• Spend more time on guiding students in the process of doing work than on grading it.
• For each significant assignment, establish a grading schedule and stick to it.

Light Grading – Bear in mind that not every piece of student work may need your full attention. Sometimes it’s sufficient to grade student work on a simplified scale (minus / check / check-plus or even zero points / one point) to motivate them to engage in the work you want them to do. In particular, if you have students do some small assignment before class, you might not need to give them much feedback on that assignment if you’re going to discuss it in class.

Multiple-Choice Questions – These are easy to grade but can be challenging to write. Look for common student misconceptions and misunderstandings you can use to construct answer choices for your multiple-choice questions, perhaps by looking for patterns in student responses to past open-ended questions. And while multiple-choice questions are great for assessing recall of factual information, they can also work well to assess conceptual understanding and applications.

Test Corrections – Giving students points back for test corrections motivates them to learn from their mistakes, which can be critical in a course in which the material on one test is important for understanding material later in the term. Moreover, test corrections can actually save time grading, since grading the test the first time requires less feedback to students and grading the corrections often goes quickly because the student responses are mostly correct.

Spreadsheets – Many instructors use spreadsheets (e.g. Excel) to keep track of student grades. A spreadsheet program can automate most or all of the calculations you might need to perform to compute student grades. A grading spreadsheet can also reveal informative patterns in student grades. To learn a few tips and tricks for using Excel as a gradebook take a look at this sample Excel gradebook .

• Use your comments to teach rather than to justify your grade, focusing on what you’d most like students to address in future work.
• Link your comments and feedback to the goals for an assignment.
• Comment primarily on patterns — representative strengths and weaknesses.
• Avoid over-commenting or “picking apart” students’ work.
• In your final comments, ask questions that will guide further inquiry by students rather than provide answers for them.

Maintaining Grading Consistency in Multi-sectioned Courses (for course heads)

• Communicate your grading policies, standards, and criteria to teaching assistants, graders, and students in your course.
• Discuss your expectations about all facets of grading (criteria, timeliness, consistency, grade disputes, etc) with your teaching assistants and graders.
• Encourage teaching assistants and graders to share grading concerns and questions with you.
• have teaching assistants grade assignments for students not in their section or lab to curb favoritism (N.B. this strategy puts the emphasis on the evaluative, rather than the teaching, function of grading);
• have each section of an exam graded by only one teaching assistant or grader to ensure consistency across the board;
• have teaching assistants and graders grade student work at the same time in the same place so they can compare their grades on certain sections and arrive at consensus.
• Include your grading policies, procedures, and standards in your syllabus.
• Avoid modifying your policies, including those on late work, once you’ve communicated them to students.
• Distribute your grading criteria to students at the beginning of the term and remind them of the relevant criteria when assigning and returning work.
• Keep in-class discussion of grades to a minimum, focusing rather on course learning goals.

For a comprehensive look at grading, see the chapter “Grading Practices” from Barbara Gross Davis’s  Tools for Teaching.

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Grade Calculator

Use this calculator to find out the grade of a course based on weighted averages. This calculator accepts both numerical as well as letter grades. It also can calculate the grade needed for the remaining assignments in order to get a desired grade for an ongoing course.

Final Grade Calculator

Use this calculator to find out the grade needed on the final exam in order to get a desired grade in a course. It accepts letter grades, percentage grades, and other numerical inputs.

Related GPA Calculator

The calculators above use the following letter grades and their typical corresponding numerical equivalents based on grade points.

Brief history of different grading systems

In 1785, students at Yale were ranked based on "optimi" being the highest rank, followed by second optimi, inferiore (lower), and pejores (worse). At William and Mary, students were ranked as either No. 1, or No. 2, where No. 1 represented students that were first in their class, while No. 2 represented those who were "orderly, correct and attentive." Meanwhile at Harvard, students were graded based on a numerical system from 1-200 (except for math and philosophy where 1-100 was used). Later, shortly after 1883, Harvard used a system of "Classes" where students were either Class I, II, III, IV, or V, with V representing a failing grade. All of these examples show the subjective, arbitrary, and inconsistent nature with which different institutions graded their students, demonstrating the need for a more standardized, albeit equally arbitrary grading system.

In 1887, Mount Holyoke College became the first college to use letter grades similar to those commonly used today. The college used a grading scale with the letters A, B, C, D, and E, where E represented a failing grade. This grading system however, was far stricter than those commonly used today, with a failing grade being defined as anything below 75%. The college later re-defined their grading system, adding the letter F for a failing grade (still below 75%). This system of using a letter grading scale became increasingly popular within colleges and high schools, eventually leading to the letter grading systems typically used today. However, there is still significant variation regarding what may constitute an A, or whether a system uses plusses or minuses (i.e. A+ or B-), among other differences.

An alternative to the letter grading system

Letter grades provide an easy means to generalize a student's performance. They can be more effective than qualitative evaluations in situations where "right" or "wrong" answers can be easily quantified, such as an algebra exam, but alone may not provide a student with enough feedback in regards to an assessment like a written paper (which is much more subjective).

Although a written analysis of each individual student's work may be a more effective form of feedback, there exists the argument that students and parents are unlikely to read the feedback, and that teachers do not have the time to write such an analysis. There is precedence for this type of evaluation system however, in Saint Ann's School in New York City, an arts-oriented private school that does not have a letter grading system. Instead, teachers write anecdotal reports for each student. This method of evaluation focuses on promoting learning and improvement, rather than the pursuit of a certain letter grade in a course. For better or for worse however, these types of programs constitute a minority in the United States, and though the experience may be better for the student, most institutions still use a fairly standard letter grading system that students will have to adjust to. The time investment that this type of evaluation method requires of teachers/professors is likely not viable on university campuses with hundreds of students per course. As such, although there are other high schools such as Sanborn High School that approach grading in a more qualitative way, it remains to be seen whether such grading methods can be scalable. Until then, more generalized forms of grading like the letter grading system are unlikely to be entirely replaced. However, many educators already try to create an environment that limits the role that grades play in motivating students. One could argue that a combination of these two systems would likely be the most realistic, and effective way to provide a more standardized evaluation of students, while promoting learning.

5 tips on writing better university assignments

Lecturer in Student Learning and Communication Development, University of Sydney

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Alexandra Garcia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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University life comes with its share of challenges. One of these is writing longer assignments that require higher information, communication and critical thinking skills than what you might have been used to in high school. Here are five tips to help you get ahead.

1. Use all available sources of information

Beyond instructions and deadlines, lecturers make available an increasing number of resources. But students often overlook these.

For example, to understand how your assignment will be graded, you can examine the rubric . This is a chart indicating what you need to do to obtain a high distinction, a credit or a pass, as well as the course objectives – also known as “learning outcomes”.

Other resources include lecture recordings, reading lists, sample assignments and discussion boards. All this information is usually put together in an online platform called a learning management system (LMS). Examples include Blackboard , Moodle , Canvas and iLearn . Research shows students who use their LMS more frequently tend to obtain higher final grades.

If after scrolling through your LMS you still have questions about your assignment, you can check your lecturer’s consultation hours.

2. Take referencing seriously

Plagiarism – using somebody else’s words or ideas without attribution – is a serious offence at university. It is a form of cheating.

In many cases, though, students are unaware they have cheated. They are simply not familiar with referencing styles – such as APA , Harvard , Vancouver , Chicago , etc – or lack the skills to put the information from their sources into their own words.

To avoid making this mistake, you may approach your university’s library, which is likely to offer face-to-face workshops or online resources on referencing. Academic support units may also help with paraphrasing.

You can also use referencing management software, such as EndNote or Mendeley . You can then store your sources, retrieve citations and create reference lists with only a few clicks. For undergraduate students, Zotero has been recommended as it seems to be more user-friendly.

Using this kind of software will certainly save you time searching for and formatting references. However, you still need to become familiar with the citation style in your discipline and revise the formatting accordingly.

3. Plan before you write

If you were to build a house, you wouldn’t start by laying bricks at random. You’d start with a blueprint. Likewise, writing an academic paper requires careful planning: you need to decide the number of sections, their organisation, and the information and sources you will include in each.

Research shows students who prepare detailed outlines produce higher-quality texts. Planning will not only help you get better grades, but will also reduce the time you spend staring blankly at the screen thinking about what to write next.

During the planning stage, using programs like OneNote from Microsoft Office or Outline for Mac can make the task easier as they allow you to organise information in tabs. These bits of information can be easily rearranged for later drafting. Navigating through the tabs is also easier than scrolling through a long Word file.

4. Choose the right words

Which of these sentences is more appropriate for an assignment?

a. “This paper talks about why the planet is getting hotter”, or b. “This paper examines the causes of climate change”.

The written language used at university is more formal and technical than the language you normally use in social media or while chatting with your friends. Academic words tend to be longer and their meaning is also more precise. “Climate change” implies more than just the planet “getting hotter”.

To find the right words, you can use SkELL , which shows you the words that appear more frequently, with your search entry categorised grammatically. For example, if you enter “paper”, it will tell you it is often the subject of verbs such as “present”, “describe”, “examine” and “discuss”.

Another option is the Writefull app, which does a similar job without having to use an online browser.

5. Edit and proofread

If you’re typing the last paragraph of the assignment ten minutes before the deadline, you will be missing a very important step in the writing process: editing and proofreading your text. A 2018 study found a group of university students did significantly better in a test after incorporating the process of planning, drafting and editing in their writing.

You probably already know to check the spelling of a word if it appears underlined in red. You may even use a grammar checker such as Grammarly . However, no software to date can detect every error and it is not uncommon to be given inaccurate suggestions.

So, in addition to your choice of proofreader, you need to improve and expand your grammar knowledge. Check with the academic support services at your university if they offer any relevant courses.

Written communication is a skill that requires effort and dedication. That’s why universities are investing in support services – face-to-face workshops, individual consultations, and online courses – to help students in this process. You can also take advantage of a wide range of web-based resources such as spell checkers, vocabulary tools and referencing software – many of them free.

Improving your written communication will help you succeed at university and beyond.

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General University Grading System

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To jump to grading policies, please select a category below

• Revise Grades

Incomplete Grades

• Repeat Grades

The following summarizes the current General University Grading System adopted by the Faculty Senate on June 2, 1994. Courses completed prior to that time were subject to  previous versions of this system .

The General University Grading System applies to all of Stanford University classes except those offered to students through the Graduate School of Business and the School of Law, and M.D. and M.S. in PAS students through the School of Medicine. Those schools grade courses using their local grading systems, even when your primary affiliation is with another Stanford school. For more details on other grading systems used at Stanford, visit Grades .

Students: Your transcripts and all your grades — excluding those of “I” (Incomplete), “GNR” (Grade Not Reported), “L” (Pass, grade to follow), and “N” (Continuation) — are fixed at the time of graduation. You have one year after your degree conferral to update grades of “GNR”, “L”, or “N” or they are locked in their existing status.

Understanding Grading Basis Types

• Grades Available: A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D, D-, NP, I, L, N, N-
• Grades Available: CR, NC, I, N, N-
• Grades Available: S, NC, I, N, N-

Revision of End-Quarter Grades

When submitted via Axess or filed with the Registrar’s Office, end-quarter grades are final; they cannot be changed by the instructor for reason of a revision of judgment or on the basis of a second trial (e.g., a new examination or additional work undertaken or completed after the end of the quarter). Changes may be made at any time to correct an error in computation or in transcribing, or where some part of the student’s work was overlooked (i.e., the new grade is the one that would have been entered on the original report had there been no mistake in computing and had all the pertinent data been before the instructor).

In the event that a student disputes an end-quarter grade, the established grievance procedure should be followed (See the Student Academic Grievance Procedures policy.)

The “I” grade is restricted to cases in which you have satisfactorily completed a substantial part of the coursework. You do not receive credit until you complete the course with a passing grade. When the Registrar’s Office receives your final grade, the “I” notation is removed from your official transcript. 

You must request an incomplete grade no later than the last class meeting. Instructors determine whether to grant the request and, if granted, the conditions under which you complete the remaining work, including setting a deadline of less than one year. Under no circumstances should you re-enroll in a class to complete an “I” grade. Enrolling in the class a second time invokes the Repeated Courses policy for courses that are not repeatable for credit.

An “I” grade must be changed to a grade or permanent notation within one year after you took the course (i.e., prior to the first day of the fifth quarter following the standard completion of the course, including Summer Quarter). If an incomplete grade is not cleared at the end of one year, it is automatically changed to an ‘NP’ (not passed) or ‘NC’ (no credit) as appropriate for the grading method of the course. Leaves of absence or other inactive statuses (e.g., discontinuation or conferral) do not alter the associated timeline.

Graduate students: If you are a graduate student with extenuating circumstances that may warrant an exception to academic policy, you must discuss the need for an extension with your advisor and the course instructor before the one-year deadline to complete the coursework expires. If the instructor agrees an extension is warranted, you may request an extension of one academic quarter to resolve an incomplete by submitting the Enrollment Change Petition - GR. Requests for extension submitted after the “I” grade has lapsed are not considered. You must have an active status (excluding a leave of absence) to petition to extend an incomplete. 

If an “I” grade lapses to an NC or NP with an approved extension on file, the lapsed grade will remain until you have completed the required work and the instructor submits a final grade. 

Note:   Once an ‘I’ grade lapses, depending on the repeatability set up of the course, students may be eligible for their ‘NP’ or ‘NC’ to be replaced by the ‘RP’ notation.  See Repeated Courses  for additional information.

Leave of Absence

If you are on an approved leave of absence, you may complete coursework for which you received an “I” grade in a prior term unless doing so places an undue burden on an instructor, department, staff, or another university resource. You are still expected to comply with the maximum one-year time limit for resolving incompletes (i.e., a leave of absence does not alter the associated timeline for resolving incompletes). 

Military Leaves of Absence

Students on an approved Military Leave of Absence are granted the following exceptions to the Incomplete Grading policies:

• If the student is called to service within weeks 1-8 of the quarter, the student may complete an LOA request form and receive a full tuition refund regardless of attendance.
• If the student is called to service within weeks 9-11, the student may take Incompletes in any or all courses; or the student may receive a grade for work completed in the course to date, based on the agreement with each instructor. 
• In rare situations, the course requirements may not have been adequately met by weeks 9-11 in order to permit an Incomplete grade assignment. If the student was unable to complete the course requirements by the start of their military service and it is not possible for the student to complete the requirements at a later time, a late drop may be permitted. If the student had not been adequately engaging in the course prior to their leave, the instructor may be permitted to assign a grade of “NP” or “NC.”
• For a student completing work for previous incomplete courses, their timeline to complete the work will be extended by the duration of their required military service.
• Instructors must set a reasonable timeline for students to complete the work for an incomplete course and may not set a deadline prior to the student’s return from military service. Instructors must allow, at a minimum, a full quarter for the student to complete the work upon their return from military service. Students, in agreement with the professor, must complete the work within 1 year or less after their return from military service to align with the existing Incomplete grade policy. 
• Should a student be called away to active duty after the last day of classes and unable to sit for final exams, the requirement to request an Incomplete grade in a course prior to finals week is not in effect.

Discontinued Students

You may complete and submit work toward an incomplete while in discontinued status unless doing so places an undue burden on the instructor, department, staff, or another university resource. You must fulfill the Incomplete within one year of the class finishing or risk lapsing to the appropriate failing notation (NP, NC). You must be in an active status to petition to extend an incomplete and are not permitted to make this request while in a discontinued or conferred status. Once an incomplete has lapsed to a failing grade, it no longer is eligible to be updated by the instructor nor can an extension be granted. Discontinuation does not alter the associated timeline for resolving incompletes.

Repeated Courses

Some Stanford courses may be repeated for credit; they are specifically noted in the Stanford Bulletin and ExploreCourses . Most courses may not be repeated for credit. Under the General University Grading System, when a course that may not be repeated for credit is retaken by a student, the following special rules apply:

• You  may retake any course on your transcript, regardless of the grade earned, and have the original grade, for completed courses only, replaced by the notation 'RP' (repeated course). When retaking a course, the student must enroll in it for the same number of units originally taken. When the grade for the second enrollment in the course has been reported, the units and grade points for the second course count in the cumulative grade point average in place of the grade and units for the first enrollment in the course. Because the notation 'RP' can only replace grades for completed courses, the notation 'W' cannot be replaced by the notation 'RP' in any case.
• You may not retake the same course a third time unless you received an “NC” (no credit) or “NP” (not passed) when it was taken and completed the second time. When you complete a course the third time, grades and units for both the second and third completions count in your cumulative grade point average. The notation “W” is not counted toward the three-retake maximum. Any enrollment instance beyond the third retake, regardless of the grade earned, is not permitted unless by special approval from the Office of Academic Advising or the Registrar’s Office. 

Note:   Once an “I” notation lapses to an “NP” or is updated to a final grade by the instructor, it can be replaced by the “RP” notation. If you are working to complete an “I” notation and enroll in the class a second time, you could run the risk of having the incomplete excluded from the repeat process, eventually lapsing to an “NP” and subsequently frozen on the transcript upon degree conferral.  Additional information on incomplete grades can be found in the Incomplete Grades section of this page.

You can submit questions on the Repeated Courses Policy via a Service Request .

Undergraduates who have questions related to requesting a second repeat of a course should meet with an Academic Advisor.

Temporary “N” Grades

Grading tgr 801 or 802 courses (“n” grades).

801 and 802 courses extend past a single quarter into successive quarters. You typically enroll in these courses when working on activities such as projects, theses, or dissertations.

When the instructor/advisor determines you are making satisfactory progress on the activity during the initial quarter(s) of these classes, you receive an “N” grade to indicate acceptable progress in a continuing course. You are given an “S” grade at the end of the final quarter when the instructor/advisor considers the activity satisfactorily completed.

When the instructor/advisor determines your progress is unsatisfactory in these courses, you receive an “N-” grade.  Your first 'N-' grade constitutes a warning. The advisor, department chair, and student should discuss the deficiencies and agree on the steps necessary to correct them. If you receive a second “N-” it will normally result in the department denying you further registration until you submit a written plan for the completion of the degree requirements that is accepted by the department. Subsequent “N-” grades are grounds for dismissal from the program.

When you receive a final grade of “S” or “NP” for the final quarter of the project, thesis, or dissertation, that grade retroactively replaces the “N” grades for previous quarters. After you apply to graduate, the Registrar's Office runs an “N” grade report at the end of each quarter to update temporary “N” grades to their respective final grade. If the final grade is reported, but the previous “N” grades have not been replaced, please submit a SU Services & Support Request . Allow the Registrar’s Office several weeks after the end of each quarter to complete the process before reporting unconverted “N” grades.

Grading Non-TGR Courses (“N” Grades)

Departmental courses requiring enrollment for a number of successive quarters for ongoing research, projects, capstones, or theses that do not fall under the category of TGR status, are also eligible for a temporary “N” grade. To indicate that you are making satisfactory progress on the activity, your instructor assigns an “N” grade. Your final grade is recorded during the final quarter of enrollment in the series when you complete the research, project, capstone, or thesis and it is accepted by the department. If the ongoing project is not completed or accepted by the department, a grade of “NP” or “NC” is recorded as appropriate for the grading method of the course.

The Registrar’s Office does not run a manual “N” grade report for you if you have not applied to graduate. If you have not applied to graduate, or do not yet meet the requirements for degree conferral, your instructor must manually update the grade for each quarter,  replacing the temporary “N” with your final grade. The units of credit awarded for the course do not appear on your transcript or on your student record until the “N” grade is updated (i.e., replaced by the instructor with your final grade). 

The grading system in the US demystified (everything you want to know)

From the average course length and higher tuition fees to the importance of college football, there’s a lot that sets universities in America apart from those in other countries.

But for a student hoping to study abroad in the US , one of the more confusing things to understand is the US grading system.

You may have heard that American universities use letter grades when marking assignments, or you might already be familiar with the term ‘GPA,’ but how does it all fit together to give you a grade at the end of your studies?

Don’t worry, because we’ve got you covered. From how individual assignments are graded to how to calculate your GPA, here’s everything you need to know about the grading system in the USA.

Table of Contents

1. how are individual assessments graded in america, 2. what are quality points and how do they affect your grade, 3. what is a gpa and why is it important, 4. how is your gpa calculated, 5. what degree classifications are there in the us.

Every time you complete an individual assignment, your lecturer or instructor will give you a letter grade to tell you how well you performed.

The letter grading system ranges from A to F, and which letter you get depends on what percentage you score in the assignment, either by answering questions correctly or demonstrating that you’ve met the course requirements.

Grading system in the US (Grade conversion)

Anything between A and D is a pass, while F marks a failed assignment. You can also break each grade down even further if you wish, meaning you could class a B grade as a B+, B= or B-.

One thing to point out is that there has been no E grade in the American grading system since the 19th century, when parents and students would sometimes wrongly presume that the E stood for ‘excellent.’

Also read: How does the UK university grading system work?

Though individual assignments are mostly marked using the letter grade system, your grades aren’t the only thing used to determine your overall qualification.

This is where the US grading system gets a little more complicated. At most US universities, your grades will often correspond to something called a quality point, which is then calculated towards your GPA (more on this next).

Though every school, college and higher education institution uses a different scale, most use a 4.0 scale — referred to as a four point scale — that accompany your letter grades. 

For example, if you receive an A grade, this will correspond to four points, while a B will get you three points, and so on until you reach F, which gives you no points.

Your overall grades then provide a Grade Point Average (GPA), which is the standard way of measuring academic achievement in the US.

The purpose of a GPA is to paint a picture of what kind of student you are, based on your performance throughout your degree.

If you passed all of your classes with high grades, you will most likely have a GPA that’s close to a 4.0. Alternatively, if you struggled with some classes but excelled in others, you may have a GPA of 2.5 to 3.0.

Getting a good GPA is really important if you want to apply for scholarships, enroll in a master’s degree or find a graduate job, as one of the first things admissions tutors or potential employers will do is look at your GPA.

So now you know what a GPA is, the next step is to figure out how it’s calculated.

Each course you take has a set number of ‘units’ or ‘credits’ depending on the content and the set number of hours needed to complete weekly classes and homework.

Your average GPA is calculated by adding all the quality points achieved in each unit together and then dividing this by overall the number of course credits or units (credit hours) you attempted.

This number represents your GPA.

So for example, say you take one three-unit class and receive an A grade and then also get a C in a four-unit class. 

For the first class, you need to times the three units by the four quality points for an A, giving you a total of 12-grade points.

For the second class, times the four units by two (the number of points you get for a C grade) to get eight points. Now, if you add these two numbers together you have accumulated 20 points over seven units. 

Divide the total points by the total number of units to find your GPA, which in this case is 2.86, which falls just short of a 3.0 (B) average.

To Convert A Grade in India to the US 4.0 GPA Scale

At the end of the average undergraduate degree in the UK , students either graduate with First-Class Honours (70%+), an Upper Second-Class Honours or 2:1 (60-70%), a Lower Second-Class Honours or 2:2 (50-60%) or Third-Class Honours (40-50%).

If you achieve anything above 40%, you will pass your degree, while scoring higher than 70% will get you a first, the highest possible classification.

In America, the grading system in education is set up completely differently.

Instead of being awarded an honours classification, your GPA is your final grade, and is calculated using the method we explained above, by taking all your individual grades for each class into consideration.

The highest GPA you can graduate with is a 4.0, which is the equivalent to scoring 90-100%, or a first in the UK. A score of 80-89% overall provides a GPA of 3.0, while 70-79% is equivalent to a 2.0.

At the bottom end of the scale, the lowest GPA you are allowed to graduate with is 1.0, which is equivalent to scoring 60-69% in the UK. In America, anything less than 60% is counted as a fail.

Interested in studying abroad in the US? Learn more about all the top universities in America on our website and let us help you find your perfect course and university today!

You might also like: Difference between School, College and University in the UK

Guest Author

Talya is a part-time journalism master's student living in North Yorkshire.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions shared in this site solely belong to the individual authors and do not necessarily represent t ...Read More

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Assigning Course Grades

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• Introduction
• Grading Comparisons
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I. INTRODUCTION

The end-of-course grades assigned by instructors are intended to convey the level of achievement of each student in the class. These grades are used by students, other faculty, university administrators, and prospective employers to make a multitude of different decisions. Unless instructors use generally-accepted policies and practices in assigning grades, these grades are apt to convey misinformation and lead the decision-maker astray. When grading policies and practices are carefully formulated and reviewed periodically, they can serve well the many purposes for which they are used.

What might a faculty member consider to establish sound grading policies and practices? The issues which contribute to making grading a controversial topic are primarily philosophical in nature. There are no research studies that can answer questions like: What should an "A" grade mean? What percent of the students in my class should receive a "C?" Should spelling and grammar be judged in assigning a grade to a paper? What should a course grade represent? These "should" questions require value judgments rather than an interpretation of research data; the answer to each will vary from instructor to instructor. But all instructors must ask similar questions and find acceptable answers to them in establishing their own grading policies. It is not sufficient to have  some  method of assigning grades--the method used must be defensible by the user in terms of his or her beliefs about the goals of an American college education and tempered by the realities of the setting in which grades are given. An instructor's view of the role of a university education consciously or unwittingly affects grading plans. The instructor who believes that the end product of a university education should be a "prestigious" group which has survived four or more years of culling and sorting has different grading policies from the instructor who believes that most college-aged youths should be able to earn a college degree in four or more years.

An instructor's beliefs are influenced by many factors. As any of these factors change there may be a corresponding change in belief. The type of instructional strategy used in teaching dictates, to some extent, the type of grading procedures to use. For example, a mastery learning approach 1 to teaching is incongruent with a grading approach which is based on competition for an arbitrarily set number of "A" or "B" grades. Grading policies of the department, college, or campus may limit the procedures which can be used and force a basic grading plan on each instructor in that administrative unit. The recent response to grade inflation has caused some faculty, individually and collectively, to alter their philosophies and procedures. Pressure from colleagues to give lower or higher grades often causes some faculty members to operate in conflict with their own views. Student grade expectations and the need for positive student evaluations of instruction probably both contribute to the shaping or altering of the grading philosophies of some faculty. The dissonance created by institutional restraints probably contributes to the wide-spread feeling that end-of-course grading is one of the least pleasant tasks facing a college instructor.

With careful thought and periodic review, most instructors can develop satisfactory, defensible grading policies and procedures. To this end, several of the key issues associated with grading are identified in the sections which follow. In each case, alternative viewpoints are described and advantages and disadvantages noted. Regulations pertaining to grading at the University of Illinois are presented in Article 3, Part 1 of the Student Code .

1 Airasian, P. W., Block, J. H., Bloom, B. S., & Carroll, J. B., (1971) Mastery learning: Theory and practice (J. Block, Ed.). Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

II. GRADING COMPARISONS

Some kind of comparison is being made when grades are assigned. For example, an instructor may compare a student's performance to that of his or her classmates, to standards of excellence (i.e., pre-determined objectives, contracts, professional standards) or to combinations of each. Four common comparisons used to determine college and university grades and the major advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed in the following section. 

Comparisons With Other Students

By comparing a student's overall course performance with that of some relevant group of students, the instructor assigns a grade to show the student's level of achievement or standing within that group. An "A" might not represent excellence in attainment of knowledge and skill if the reference group as a whole is somewhat inept. All students enrolled in a course during a given semester or all students enrolled in a course since its inception are examples of possible comparison groups. The nature of the reference group used is the key to interpreting grades based on comparisons with other students. 

Some Advantages of Grading Based on Comparison With Other Students

• Individuals whose academic performance is outstanding in comparison to their peers are rewarded.
• The system is a common one that many faculty members are familiar with. Given additional information about the students, instructor, or college department, grades from the system can be interpreted easily.

Some Disadvantages of Grading Based on Comparison With Other Students

• No matter how outstanding the reference group of students is, some will receive low grades; no matter how low the overall achievement in the reference group, some students will receive high grades. Grades are difficult to interpret without additional information about the overall quality of the group.
• Grading standards in a course tend to fluctuate with the quality of each class of students. Standards are raised by the performance of a bright class and lowered by the performance of a less able group of students. Often a student's grade depends on who was in the class.
• There is usually a need to develop course "norms" which account for more than a single class performance. Students of an instructor who is new to the course may be at a particular disadvantage since the reference group will necessarily be small and very possibly atypical compared with future classes.

Comparisons with Established Standards

Grades may be obtained by comparing a student's performance with specified absolute standards rather than with such relative standards as the work of other students. In this grading method, the instructor is interested in indicating how much of a set of tasks or ideas a student knows, rather than how many other students have mastered more or less of that domain. A "C" in an introductory statistics class might indicate that the student has minimal knowledge of descriptive and inferential statistics. A much higher achievement level would be required for an "A." Note that students' grades depend on their level of content mastery; thus the levels of performance of their classmates has no bearing on the final course grade. There are no quotas in each grade category. It is possible in a given class that all students could receive an "A" or a "B." 

Some Advantages of Grading Based on Comparison to Absolute Standards

• Course goals and standards must necessarily be defined clearly and communicated to the students.
• Most students, if they work hard enough and receive adequate instruction, can obtain high grades. The focus is on achieving course goals, not on competing for a grade.
• Final course grades reflect achievement of course goals. The grade indicates "what" a student knows rather than how well he or she has performed relative to the reference group.
• Students do not jeopardize their own grade if they help another student with course work.

Some Disadvantages of Grading Based on Comparison to Absolute Standards

• It is difficult and time consuming to determine what course standards should be for each possible course grade issued.
• The instructor has to decide on reasonable expectations of students and necessary prerequisite knowledge for subsequent courses. Inexperienced instructors may be at a disadvantage in making these assessments.
• A complete interpretation of the meaning of a course grade cannot be made unless the major course goals are also available.

Comparisons Based on Learning Relative to Improvement and Ability

The following two comparisons—with improvement and ability⁠—are sometimes used by instructors in grading students. There are such serious philosophical and methodological problems related to these comparisons that their use is highly questionable for most educational situations. 

Relative to Improvement...

Students' grades may be based on the knowledge and skill they possess at the end of a course compared to their level of achievement at the beginning of the course. Large gains are assigned high grades and small gains are represented by low grades. Students who enter a course with some pre-course knowledge are obviously penalized; they have less to gain from a course than does a relatively naive student. The post test–pretest gain score is more error-laden, from a measurement perspective, than either of the scores from which it is derived. Though growth is certainly important when assessing the impact of instruction, it is less useful as a basis for determining course grades than end-of-course competence. The value of grades which reflect growth in a college-level course is probably minimal. 

Relative to Ability...

Course grades might represent the amount students learned in a course relative to how much they could be expected to learn as predicted from their measured academic ability. Students with high ability scores (e.g., scores on the SAT or ACT) would be expected to achieve higher final examination scores than those with lower ability scores. When grades are based on comparisons with predicted ability, an "overachiever" and an "underachiever" may receive the same grade in a particular course, yet their levels of competence with respect to the course content may be vastly different. The first student may not be prepared to take a more advanced course, but the second student may be. A course grade may, in part, reflect the amount of effort the instructor believes a student has put into a course. The high ability students who can satisfy course requirements with minimal effort are penalized for their apparent "lack" of effort. Since the letter grade alone does not communicate such information, the value of ability-based grading does not warrant its use.

A single course grade should represent only one of the several grading comparisons noted above. To expect a course grade to reflect more than one of these comparisons is too much of a communication burden. Instructors who wish to communicate more than relative group standing, or subject matter competence or level of effort, must find additional ways to provide such information to each student. Suggestions for doing so are noted near the end of Section V.

III. BASIC GRADING GUIDELINES

1. grades should conform to the practice in the department and the institution in which the grading occurs. .

Grading policies of the department, college, or campus may limit the grading procedures which can be used and force a basic grading philosophy on each instructor in that administrative unit. Departments often have written statements which specify a method of assigning grades and meanings of grades. If such grading policies are not explicitly stated or written for faculty use, the percentages of A's, B's, C's, D's, and F's given by departments and colleges in their 100-level, 200- level, 300-level and graduate courses may be indicative of implicitly stated grading policies. Grade distribution information is available from all departmental offices or from Measurement and Evaluation (M&E) of the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL).

The University regulations encourage a uniform grading policy so that a grade of A, B, C, D, or F will have the same meaning independent of the college or department awarding the grade. In practice grade distributions vary by department, by college, and over time within each of these units. The grading standards of a department or college are usually known by other campus units. For example, a "B" in a required course given by Department X might indicate that the student probably is not a qualified candidate for graduate school in that or a related field. Or, a "B" in a required course given by Department Y might indicate that the student's knowledge is probably adequate for the next course. Grades in certain "key" courses may also be interpreted as a sign of a student's ability to continue work in the field. The faculty member who is uninformed about the grading grapevine may unwittingly make misleading statements about a student and also misinterpret information received. If an instructor's grading pattern differs markedly from others in the department or college and the grading is not being done in special classes (e.g., honors, remedial), the instructor should reexamine his or her grading practices to see that they are rational and defensible. Sometimes an individual faculty member's grading policy will differ markedly from that of the department and/or college and yet be defensible. For example, the department and instructor may be using different grading standards, course structure may seem to require a grading plan which differs from departmental guidelines, or the instructor and department may hold different ideas about the function of grading. Usually in such cases, a satisfactory grading plan can be worked out. Faculty new to the University can consult with the department head for advice about grade assignment procedures in particular courses.  Measurement and Evaluation will consult with faculty on grading problems and procedures. 

2. Grading Components Should Yield Accurate Information.

Carefully written tests and/or graded assignments (homework papers, projects) are keys to accurate grading. Because it is not customary at the university level to accumulate many grades per student, each grade carries great weight and should be as accurate as possible. Poorly planned tests and assignments increase the likelihood that grades will be based primarily on factors of chance. Some faculty members argue that over the course of a college education, students will receive an equal number of higher-grades-than-merited and lower-grades-than-merited. Consequently, final GPA's will be relatively correct. However, in view of the many ways course grades are used, each course grade is often significant in itself to the student and others. No evaluation efforts can be expected to be perfectly accurate, but there is merit in striving to assign course grades that most accurately reflect the level of competence of each student. 

3. Grading Plans Should Be Communicated to the Class at the Beginning of Each Semester.

By stating the grading procedures at the beginning of a course, the instructor is essentially making a "contract" with the class about how each student is going to be evaluated. The contract should provide the students with a clear understanding of the instructor's expectations so that the students can structure their work efforts. Students should be informed about: which course activities will be considered in their final grade; the importance or weight of exams, quizzes, homework sets, papers and projects; and which topics are more important than others. Students also need to know what method will be used to assign their course grade and what kind of comparison the course grade will represent. By informing students early in the semester about course priorities, the instructor encourages students to study what he or she deems valuable. All of this information can be communicated effectively as a part of the course outline or syllabus. 

4. Grading Plans Stated at the Beginning of the Course Should Not Be Changed Without Thoughtful Consideration and a Complete Explanation to the Students.

Two common complaints found on students' post-course evaluations are that grading procedures stated at the beginning of the course were either inconsistently followed or were changed without explanation or even advanced notice. One could look at the situation of altering or inconsistently following the grading plan as being analogous to playing a game wherein the rules arbitrarily change, sometimes without the players' knowledge. The ability to participate becomes an extremely difficult and frustrating experience. Students are placed in the unreasonable position of never knowing for sure what the instructor considers important. When the rules need to be changed all of the players must be informed (and hopefully be in agreement).

5. The Number of Components or Elements Used to Assign Course Grades Should Be Large Enough to Enhance High Accuracy in Grading.

From a decision-making point of view, the more pieces of information available to the decision-maker, the more confidence one can have that the decision will be accurate and appropriate. This same principle applies to the process of assigning grades. If only a final exam score is used to assign a course grade, the adequacy of the grade will depend on how well the test covered all the relevant aspects of course content and how typically the student performed on one specific day during a 2-3 hour period. Though the minimum number of tests, quizzes, papers, projects, and/or presentations needed must be course- specific, each instructor must attempt to secure as much relevant data as are reasonably possible to ensure that the course grade will accurately reflect each student's achievement level.

IV. SOME METHODS OF ASSIGNING COURSE GRADES

Various grading practices are used by college and university faculty. Following is an examination of the more widely used methods and discussion of the advantages, disadvantages and fallacies associated with each. 

Weighting Grading Components and Combining Them to Obtain a Final Grade

Grades are typically based on a number of graded components (e.g., exams, papers, projects, quizzes). Instructors often wish to weight some components more heavily than others. For example, four combined quiz scores may be valued at the same weight as each of four hourly exam grades. When assigning weights the instructor should consider the extent to which:

• each grading component measures important goals.
• achievement can be accurately measured with each grading component.
• each grading component measures a different area of course content or objectives compared to other components.

Once it has been decided what weight each grading component should have, the instructor should ensure that the desired weights are actually used. This task is not as simple as it first appears. An extreme example of weighting will illustrate the problem.

Suppose that a 40-item exam and an 80-item exam are to be combined so they have equal weight (50 percent-50 percent in the total). We must know something about the spread of scores or variability (e.g., standard deviation) on each exam before adding the scores together. For example, assume that scores on the shorter exam are quite evenly spread throughout the range 10-40, and the scores on the other are in the range 75-80. Because there is so little variability on the 80-item exam, if we merely add each student's scores together, the spread of scores in the total will be very much like the spread of scores observed on the first exam. The second exam will have very little weight in the total score. The net effect is like adding a constant value to each student's score on the 40-item exam; the students maintain essentially the same relative standing. 

The information appearing in Figure 1 will be used to demonstrate how scores can be adjusted to achieve the desired weighting before combining them. Exam No. 2 is twice as long as the first, but there is twice as much variability in Exam No. 1 scores. (This is the "observed weight.") The standard deviation tells us, conceptually, the average amount by which scores deviate from the mean of test scores. The larger the value, the more the scores are spread throughout the possible range of test scores. The variability of scores (standard deviation) is the key to proper weighting. If we merely add these scores together, Exam No. 1 will carry 66 percent of the weight and Exam No. 2 will carry 33 percent weight. We must adjust the scores on the second exam so that the standard deviation of the scores will be similar to that for Exam No. 1. This can be accomplished by multiplying each score on the 80-item exam by two; the adjusted scores will become more varied (standard deviation = 7.0). The score from Exam No. 1 can then be added to the adjusted score from Exam No. 2 to yield a total in which the components are equally weighted. (A practical solution to combining several weighted components is to first transform raw scores to standard scores, z or T, before applying relative weights and adding.) Additional reading can be found in Ebel & Frisbie (1991); Linn & Gronlund (1995); and Ory & Ryan (1993).

After grading weights have been assigned and combined scores are calculated for each student, the instructor must change the numbered scores into one of five letter grades. There are several ways of doing this; some are more appropriate than others. 

The Distribution Gap Method

This widely-used method of assigning test or course grades is based on the relative ranking of students in the form of a frequency distribution or tally of student exam scores. The frequency distribution is carefully scrutinized for gaps, several consecutive scores which have zero frequency. A horizontal line is drawn at the top of the first gap ("Here are the A's") and a second gap is sought. The process continues until all possible grade ranges (A-F) are identified. The major fallacy with this technique is the dependence on "chance" to form the gaps. The gaps are random because measurement errors (due to guessing, poorly written items, etc.) dictate where gaps will or will not appear. If scores from an equivalent test could be obtained from the same group, the gaps would likely appear in different places. Some students would get higher grades, some would get lower grades, and many grades would remain unchanged. Unless the instructor has additional achievement data to reevaluate borderline cases, many students could see their fate determined more by chance than performance. 

Grading on the Curve

This method of assigning grades based on group comparisons is complicated by the need to establish arbitrary quotas for each grade category. What percent should get A's? B's? D's? Once these quotas are fixed, grades are assigned without regard to level of performance. The highest ten percent may have achieved at about the same level. Those who "set the curve" or "blow the top off the curve" are merely among the top group; their grade may be the same as that of a student who scored 20 points lower. The bottom five percent may be assigned F's though the bottom fifteen percent may be relatively indistinguishable in achievement. Quota-setting strategies vary from instructor to instructor and department to department and seldom carry a defensible rationale. While some instructors defend the use of the normal or bell shaped curve as an appropriate model for setting quotas, using the normal curve is as arbitrary as using any other curve. It is highly unlikely that our college and university student abilities or achievement are normally distributed. Grading on the curve is efficient from an instructor point of view. Therein lies the only merit in the method. 

Percent Grading

The long-standing use of percent grading in any form is questionable. Scores on papers, tests, and projects are typically converted to a percent based on the total possible score. The percent score is then interpreted as the percent of content, skills or knowledge over which the student has command. Thus an exam score of 83 percent means that the student knows 83 percent of the content which is represented by the test items. Grades are usually assigned to percent scores using arbitrary standards similar to those set for grading on the curve, i.e., students with scores 93-100 get A's and 85-92 is a B, 78-84 is a C, etc. The restriction here is on the score ranges rather than on the number of individuals who can earn each grade. Should the cutoff for an A be 92 instead? Why not 90? What sound rationale can be given for any particular cutoff? In addition, it seems indefensible in most cases to set grade cutoffs that remain constant throughout the course and several consecutive offerings of the course. It does seem defensible for the instructor to decide on cutoffs for each grading component, independent of the others, so that the scale for an A might be 93-100 for Exam No. 1, 88-100 for a paper, 87-100 for Exam No. 2 and 90-100 for the Final Exam. Some instructors who use percent grading find themselves in a bind when the highest score obtained on an exam is only 68 percent, for example. Was the examination much too difficult? Did students study too little? Was instruction relatively ineffective? Oftentimes, instructors decide to "adjust" scores so that 68 percent is equated to 100 percent. Though the adjustment might cause all concerned to breathe easier, the new score is essentially the percentage of exam content learned by the students. The exam score of 83 no longer means that the student knew 83 percent of the exam content. 

A Relative Grading Method

Using group comparisons for grading is appropriate when the class size is sufficiently large (perhaps 35 students or more) to provide a reference group representative of students typically enrolled in the course. The following steps describe a widely used and generally sound procedure:

• Convert raw scores on each exam to a standard score (z or T) by using the mean and standard deviations from each respective test, set of papers, or presentations (see Appendix). Standard scores are recommended because they allow us to measure performance on each grading component with an identical or standard yardstick. When relative comparisons are to be made, it is not advisable to convert raw scores to grades and average the separate grades. This is because the distinction between achievement levels will be lost; differences will melt together as students are forced into a few broad categories. 
• Weight each grading variable before combining the standard scores. For example, double both exam standard scores and the standard score for the paper, triple the final exam standard score, and do nothing to the standard score for the presentation. The respective weights for these variables in the total will then be 20 percent, 20 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent, and 10 percent.
• Add these weighted scores to get a composite or total score. 
• Build a frequency distribution of the total scores by listing all obtainable scores and the number of students receiving each. Calculate the mean, median, and standard deviation (see Appendix). Most calculators now available will perform these operations quickly. 
• If the mean and median are similar in value, use the mean for further computations. Otherwise use the median. Let's assume we have chosen the median. Add one half of the standard deviation to the median and subtract the same value from the median. These are the cutoff points for the range of C's.
• Add one standard deviation to the upper cutoff of the C's to find the A-B cutoff. Subtract the same value from the lower cutoff of the C's to find the D-F cutoff. 
• Use number of assignments complete or quality of assignments or other relative achievement data available to reevaluate borderline cases. Measurement error exists in composite scores too!

Instructors will need to decide logically on the values to be used for finding grade cutoffs (one-half, one-third, or three-fourths of a standard deviation, for example). How the current class compares to past classes in ability should be judged in setting standards. When B rather than C is considered the average grade, step five will identify the A-B and C-B cutoffs. Step six would be changed accordingly.

Relative grading methods like the one outlined above are not free from limitations; subjectivity enters into several aspects of the process. But a systematic approach similar to this one, and one which is thoroughly described in the first class meeting, is not likely to be subject to charges of capricious grading and miscommunication between student and instructor. 

An Absolute Standard Grading Method

Absolute grading is the only form of assigning grades which is compatible with mastery or near-mastery teaching and learning strategies. The instructor must be able to describe learner behaviors expected at the end of instruction so that grading components can be determined and measures can be built to evaluate performance. Objectives of instruction are provided for students to guide their learning, and achievement measures (tests, papers, and projects) are designed from the sets of objectives.

Each time achievement is measured, the score is compared with some criterion or standard set by the instructor. Students who do not meet the minimum criterion level study further, rewrite their paper, or make changes in their project to prepare to be evaluated again. This process continues until the student meets the minimum standards established by the instructor. The standards are an important key to the success of this grading method. The following example illustrates how the procedures can be implemented step-by-step:

• Assume that a test has been built using the objectives from two units of instruction. Read each test item and decide if a student with minimum mastery could answer it correctly. For short answer or essay items, decide how much of the ideal answer the student must supply to demonstrate minimum mastery. Make subjective decisions, in part, on the basis of whether or not the item measures important prerequisites for subsequent units in the course or subsequent courses in the students' programs of study. 
• The sum of the points from the above step represents the minimum score for mastery. Next, decide what grade the criterion score should be associated with. (Assume for our purposes that the criterion represents the C-B cutoff.) 
• Reexamine items which students are not necessarily expected to answer correctly to show minimum mastery. Decide how many of these items "A" students should answer correctly. Such students would exhibit exceptionally good preparation for later instruction. (This step could be done concurrently with Step 1.) 
• Add the totals from Steps 1 and 3 to find the criterion score for the B-A grade cutoff. 
• Each criterion score set in the above fashion should be adjusted downward by 2-4 points. This adjustment takes measurement error into account. It 16. compensates for the fact that as test constructors, we may write a few ambiguous or highly difficult items which a well-prepared student might miss due to our own inadequacies. 
• After the exam has been scored, assign "A," "B," and "C or less" grades using the criterion scores. Students who earn "C or less" should be given a different but equivalent form of the test within two weeks. A criterion score must be set for this test as described in Step 1. Students who score above the criterion can earn a "B" at most. Those who fail to meet the criterion on the second testing might be examined orally by the instructor for subsequent checks on their mastery. 
• Weight the grades from the separate exams, papers, presentations, and projects according to the percentages established at the outset of the course. Average the weighted grades (using numerical equivalents, e.g., A = 5, B = 4, etc.) to determine the course grade. Borderline cases can be reexamined using additional achievement data from the course.

V. GRADING VS. EVALUATION

A distinction should be made between components which an instructor evaluates and components which are used to determine course grades. Components or variables which contribute to determining course grades should reflect each student's competence in the course content. The components of a grade should be academically oriented—they should not be tools of discipline or awards for pleasant personalities or "good" attitudes. A student who gets an "A" in a course should have a firm grasp of the skills and knowledge taught in that course. If the student is merely marginal academically but very industrious and congenial, an "A" grade would be misleading and would render a blow to the motivation of the excellent students in the program. Instructors can give feedback to students on many traits or characteristics, but only academic performance components should be used in determining course grades.

Some potentially invalid grading components are considered below. Though some exceptions could be noted, these variables generally should not be used to determine course grades. 

Class Attendance

Students should be encouraged to attend class meetings because it is assumed that the lectures, demonstrations, and discussion will facilitate their learning. If students miss several classes then their performance on examinations, papers, and projects will likely suffer. If the instructor further reduces the course grade because of absence, the instructor is essentially submitting such students to "double jeopardy." For example, an instructor may say that attendance counts ten percent of the course grade, but for students who are absent frequently this may in effect amount to 20 percent. Teachers who experience a good deal of class "cutting" might examine their classroom environment and methods to determine if changes are needed and ask their students why attendance was low. 

Class Participation

Obviously seminars and small classes depend on student participation to some degree for their success. When participation is important, it may be appropriate for the instructor to use participation grades. In such cases the instructor should keep weekly notes regarding frequency and quality of participation; waiting until the end of the semester and relying strictly on memory makes a relatively subjective task even more subjective. Participation should probably not be graded in most courses, however. Dominating or extroverted students tend to win and introverted or shy students tend to lose. Students should be graded in terms of their achievement level, not in terms of their personality type. Instructors may want to give feedback to students on many aspects of their personality but grading should not be the means of doing so. 

Neatness is written work, correctness in spelling and grammar, and organizational ability are all worthy traits. They are assets in most vocational endeavors. To this extent it seems appropriate that instructors evaluate these factors and give students feedback about them. However, unless the course objectives include instruction in these skills, students should not be graded on them in the course. A student's grade on an essay exam should not be influenced by his/her general spelling ability, neither should his/her course grade. 

Personality Factors

Most instructors are attracted to students who are agreeable, friendly, industrious, and kind; we tend to be repelled by those with opposite characteristics. To the extent that certain personalities may interfere with class work or have limited chances for employment in their field of interest, constructive feedback from the instructor may be necessary. An argumentative student who earns a "C" should have a moderate amount of knowledge about the course content. The nature of his or her personality should not have direct bearing on the course grade earned.

Instructors can and should evaluate many aspects of student performance in their course. However, only the evaluation information which relates to course goals should be used to assign a course grade. Judgments about writing and speaking skills, personality traits, effort, and motivation should be communicated in some other form. Some faculty use brief conferences for this purpose. Others communicate through comments written on papers or through the use of mock letters of recommendation.

VI. GRADING IN MULTI-SECTIONED COURSES

Some rather unique grading problems are associated with large multiple-sectioned courses taught by many different instructors under the direction and leadership of one head instructor. In many of these situations there is a common course outline or syllabus, common text, and a set of common classroom tests. The head instructor is often concerned about the potential lack of equity in grading standards and practices across the many sections. To promote fairness and equality, the following conditions might be established as part of course planning and monitored throughout the semester by the head instructor:

• The number and type of grading components (e.g., papers, quizzes, exams) should be the same for each section.
• All grading components should be identical or nearly equivalent in terms of content measured and level of difficulty.
• Section instructors should agree on the grading standards to be used (e.g., cutoff scores for grading quizzes, papers, or projects; weights to be used with each component in formulating a semester total score; and the level of difficulty of test questions to be used).
• Evaluation procedures should be consistent across sections (e.g., method of assigning scores to essays, papers, lab write-ups, and presentations).

Though all of these conditions can be addressed in the course planning stage, their implementation may be a more difficult task. Successful implementation requires a spirit of compromise between section instructors and the head instructor as well as among section instructors. Frequent review of instructor practices by the head instructor and constructive feedback to the instructors are also needed. The following guidelines contain suggestions for promoting equity in grading across multiple sections:

• To establish common grading components in each course section, all section instructors should agree at the beginning of the course on the number and kind of components to be used. Agreement should also be reached on the component weighting scheme and final requirements for each course grade (A, B, C, etc.).
• To encourage instructional adequacy across sections, many head instructors distribute the same course objectives, outlines, lecture notes and handouts to all section instructors. If each instructor is allowed to contribute to the construction of common tests, quizzes, or projects, the section instructors will become more aware of important course content and the expectations of the head instructor. This awareness will serve to "standardize" section instruction, also.
• Prior to the administration of an exam, quiz or project, all instructors should agree on established letter grade cutoff scores. The group consensus helps to standardize the administration of grading procedures by reducing the number of "lone wolves" who wish not to conform to someone else's standards.
• In cases where the grading of particular components is more subjective than objective (e.g., more influenced by personal judgment), organized group practice helps to unify the application of evaluation procedures. For example, head instructors may wish to distribute examples of A, B, or C quality projects to section instructors as models prior to the grading of their own class projects. Or, groups of instructors may wish to practice grading a stack of essay exams by circulating and discussing their individual ratings. Through such group practice the instructors involved can compare their evaluation practices with one another and become more uniform over time.
• Any grading or evaluation changes made in a particular section should be implemented in all sections.

VII. EVALUATING GRADING POLICIES

• Instructors can compare their grade distributions with the grade distributions for similar courses in the same department. Information about grade distributions is available through individual departments or through Measurement and Evaluation of the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.

Suppose you taught one section of a 100-level course with 40 students. The course is the first in a three-course sequence which is required in the students' curriculum. Your grade distribution turned out to be:

A = 5%        B = 20%        C = 40%        D = 30%        F = 5%

When you compare your course grade distribution with that of all of the previous year's sections of the same course, you found the following grade distribution:

A = 22%      B = 30%        C = 38%       D = 9%           F = 1%

Because your grade distribution is not consistent with departmental practice, further investigation is warranted to find out if your particular class was atypical, if your expectations were too high, if the exams upon which the grades were based were too difficult for the course, etc. The fact that your grade distribution does not resemble the grades assigned by your colleagues does not necessarily indicate that your grading methods are incorrect or inappropriate. However, discrepancies that you regard as significant should suggest the need for reexamination of your grading practices in light of departmental or college policies.

• Students believe that fair and explicit grading policies are an important aspect of quality instruction. The following set of ICES (Instructor and Course Evaluation System) items can be used to obtain student perceptions of course grading. The items are presented with their original ICES catalog number*.

*For additional information about using the University of Illinois ICES System, call Measurement and Evaluation at 217-244-3846.

VIII. ASSISTANCE OFFERED BY THE CENTER FOR INNOVATION IN TEACHING AND LEARNING (CITL)

Members of Measurement and Evaluation (M&E) and Instructional Development are well prepared to discuss course grading policies and procedures with faculty who wish to review or change their grading procedures. To inquire about these services email CITL at [email protected].

IX. REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING

Dressel, P. L. (1961).  Evaluation in higher education . Houghton Mifflin. 1961.

Ebel, R.L., & Frisbie, D.A. (1991).  Essentials of educational measurement (5th ed.). Prentice-Hall.

Frisbie, D. A. (1977). Issues in formulating course grading policies.  National association of colleges and teachers of agriculture journal, 21 (4). 

Frisbie, D. A. (1978). Methodological considerations in grading. National association of colleges and teachers of agriculture journal, 22 (1).

Handlin, O., & Handlin, M. F. (1970). The American college and American culture: Socialization as a function of higher education. McGraw Hill.

Hill, J. R. (1976).  Measurement and evaluation in the classroom . Merrill Publishing Co.

Linn, R., & Gronlund, N. (1995).  Measurement and assessment in teaching  (7th ed.). Prentice-Hall.

McKeachie, W. J. Teaching tips: A guidebook for the beginning college teacher (8th ed.). D. C. Heath and Co.

Mehrens, W. A. & Lehmann, I. J. (1973). Measurement and evaluation in education and psychology . Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Ory, J. O., & Ryan, K. E. (1993). Writing and grading classroom examinations . Sage.

Terwilliger, J. S. (1971). Assigning grades to students . Scott, Foresman & Co.

X. Appendix

Test statistics.

• Median (Mdn) Score   =  The 50th percentile of the score on either side of which half the scores occur.

• NOTE: Many pocket calculators are programmed to compute standard deviations.

Standard Scores

• T-Score   =  50 + 10z
• The z- and T-score formulas serve the function of  standardizing  any exam score from any group of data by transforming the exam score to a score that has a constant meaning across all different sets of scores.
• The z-score identifies the number of standard deviation units that an exam score is above or below the class mean. Given a z-score of 0.5, one knows that the corresponding exam score was one half a standard deviation above the mean. Similarly, a z-score of -0.5 is one-half a standard deviation below the mean. A T-score is simply a converted z-score which has the decimal point and a negative sign removed. A T-score is computed by multiplying a z-score by ten and adding 50 to the result. Thus, a T-score of 60 represents an exam score that is one standard deviation above the mean, whereas a T-score of 40 is one standard deviation below the mean.
• Standard scores (z or T) provide information about a student's performance relative to the performance of the entire class. If one was told that Student A received an Exam score of 52, one cannot be sure how well that student performed in comparison to the rest of the class. However, the information that Student A obtained a z-score of +1.5 (T-score = 65) reveals that the performance was one and a half standard deviations above the class average, or rather high in comparison to the rest of the class.
• The exam analysis provided by Exam Services in CITL contains these statistics for exams administered with Scantrons.

Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning

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217 333-1462

Email: [email protected]

Office of the Provost

• Teaching Tips

The Ultimate Guide to Grading Student Work

Strategies, best practices and practical examples to make your grading process more efficient, effective and meaningful

Top Hat Staff

This ultimate guide to grading student work offers strategies, tips and examples to help you make the grading process more efficient and effective for you and your students. The right approach can save time for other teaching tasks, like lecture preparation and student mentoring. 

Grading is one of the most painstaking responsibilities of postsecondary teaching. It’s also one of the most crucial elements of the educational process. Even with an efficient system, grading requires a great deal of time—and even the best-laid grading systems are not entirely immune to student complaints and appeals. This guide explores some of the common challenges in grading student work along with proven grading techniques and helpful tips to communicate expectations and set you and your students up for success, especially those who are fresh out of high school and adjusting to new expectations in college or university. 

What is grading?

Grading is only one of several indicators of a student’s comprehension and mastery, but understanding what grading entails is essential to succeeding as an educator. It allows instructors to provide standardized measures to evaluate varying levels of academic performance while providing students valuable feedback to help them gauge their own understanding of course material and skill development. Done well, effective grading techniques show learners where they performed well and in what areas they need improvement. Grading student work also gives instructors insights into how they can improve the student learning experience.

Grading challenges: Clarity, consistency and fairness

No matter how experienced the instructor is, grading student work can be tricky. No such grade exists that perfectly reflects a student’s overall comprehension or learning. In other words, some grades end up being inaccurate representations of actual comprehension and mastery. This is often the case when instructors use an inappropriate grading scale, such as a pass/fail structure for an exam, when a 100-point system gives a more accurate or nuanced picture.

Grading students’ work fairly but consistently presents other challenges. For example, grades for creative projects or essays might suffer from instructor bias, even with a consistent rubric in place. Instructors can employ every strategy they know to ensure fairness, accessibility, accuracy and consistency, and even so, some students will still complain about their grades. Handling grade point appeals can pull instructors away from other tasks that need their attention.

Many of these issues can be avoided by breaking things down into logical steps. First, get clear on the learning outcomes you seek to achieve, then ensure the coursework students will engage in is well suited to evaluating those outcomes and last, identify the criteria you will use to assess student performance. 

What are some grading strategies for educators?

There are a number of grading techniques that can alleviate many problems associated with grading, including the perception of inconsistent, unfair or arbitrary practices. Grading can use up a large portion of educators’ time. However, the results may not improve even if the time you spend on it does. Grading, particularly in large class sizes, can leave instructors feeling burnt out. Those who are new to higher education can fall into a grading trap, where far too much of their allocated teaching time is spent on grading. As well, after the graded assignments have been handed back, there may be a rush of students wanting either to contest the grade, or understand why they got a particular grade, which takes up even more of the instructor’s time. With some dedicated preparation time, careful planning and thoughtful strategies, grading student work can be smooth and efficient. It can also provide effective learning opportunities for the students and good information for the instructor about the student learning (or lack of) taking place in the course. These grading strategies can help instructors improve their accuracy in capturing student performance . 

Establishing clear grading criteria

Setting grading criteria helps reduce the time instructors spend on actual grading later on. Such standards add consistency and fairness to the grading process, making it easier for students to understand how grading works. Students also have a clearer understanding of what they need to do to reach certain grade levels.

Establishing clear grading criteria also helps instructors communicate their performance expectations to students. Furthermore, clear grading strategies give educators a clearer picture of content to focus on and how to assess subject mastery. This can help avoid so-called ‘busywork’ by ensuring each activity aligns clearly to the desired learning outcome. 

Step 1: Determine the learning outcomes and the outputs to measure performance. Does assessing comprehension require quizzes and/or exams, or will written papers better capture what the instructor wants to see from students’ performance? Perhaps lab reports or presentations are an ideal way of capturing specific learning objectives, such as behavioral mastery.

Step 2: Establish criteria to determine how you will evaluate assigned work. Is it precision in performing steps, accuracy in information recall, or thoroughness in expression? To what extent will creativity factor in the assessment?

Step 3: Determine the grade weight or value for each assignment. These weights represent the relative importance of each assignment toward the final grade and a student’s GPA. For example, how much will the final exam count relative to a research paper or essay? Once the weights are in place, it’s essential to stratify grades that distinguish performance levels. For example:

• A grade = excellent
• B grade = very good
• C grade = adequate
• D grade = poor but passing
• F grade = unacceptable

Making grading efficient

Grading efficiency depends a great deal on devoting appropriate amounts of time to certain grading tasks. For instance, some assignments deserve less attention than others. That’s why some outcomes, like attendance or participation work, can help save time by getting a simple pass/fail grade or acknowledgment of completion using a check/check-plus/check-minus scale.

However, other assignments like tests or papers need to show more in-depth comprehension of the course material. These items need more intricate scoring schemes and require more time to evaluate, especially if student responses warrant feedback.

When appropriate, multiple-choice questions can provide a quick grading technique. They also provide the added benefit of grading consistency among all students completing the questions. However, multiple-choice questions are more difficult to write than most people realize. These questions are most useful when information recall and conceptual understanding are the primary learning outcomes.

Instructors can maximize their time for more critical educational tasks by creating scheduled grading strategies and sticking to it. A spreadsheet is also essential for calculating many students’ grades quickly and exporting data to other platforms.

Making grading more meaningful in higher education

Grading student work is more than just routine, despite what some students believe. The better students understand what instructors expect them to take away from the course, the more meaningful the grading structure will be. Meaningful grading strategies reflect effective assignments, which have distinct goals and evaluation criteria. It also helps avoid letting the grading process take priority over teaching and mentoring.

Leaving thoughtful and thorough comments does more than rationalize a grade. Providing feedback is another form of teaching and helps students better understand the nuances behind the grade. Suppose a student earns a ‘C’ on a paper. If the introduction was outstanding, but the body needed improvement, comments explaining this distinction will give a clearer picture of what the ‘C’ grade represents as opposed to ‘A-level’ work.

Instructors should limit comments to elements of their work that students can actually improve or build upon. Above all, comments should pertain to the original goal of the assignment. Excessive comments that knit-pick a student’s work are often discouraging and overwhelming, leaving the student less able or willing to improve their effort on future projects. Instead, instructors should provide comments that point to patterns of strengths and areas needing improvement. It’s also helpful to leave a summary comment at the end of the assignment or paper.

Maintaining a complaint-free grading system

In many instances, an appropriate response to a grade complaint might simply be, “It’s in the syllabus.” Nevertheless, one of the best strategies to curtail grade complaints is to limit or prohibit discussions of grades during class time. Inform students that they can discuss grades outside of class or during office hours.

Instructors can do many things before the semester or term begins to reduce grade complaints. This includes detailed explanations in the grading system’s syllabus, the criteria for earning a particular letter grade, policies on late work, and other standards that inform grading. It also doesn’t hurt to remind students of each assignment’s specific grading criteria before it comes due. Instructors should avoid changing their grading policies; doing so will likely lead to grade complaints.

Assigning student grades

Since not all assignments may count equally toward a final course grade, instructors should figure out which grading scales are appropriate for each assignment. They should also consider that various assignments assess student work differently; therefore, their grading structure should reflect those differences. For example, some exams might warrant a 100-point scale rather than a pass/fail grade. Requirements like attendance or class participation might be used to reward effort; therefore, merely completing that day’s requirement is sufficient.

Grading essays and open-ended writing

Some writing projects might seem like they require more subjective grading standards than multiple-choice tests. However, instructors can implement objective standards to maintain consistency while acknowledging students’ individual approaches to the project.

Instructors should create a rubric or chart against which they evaluate each assignment. A rubric contains specific grading criteria and the point value for each. For example, out of 100 points, a rubric specifies that a maximum of 10 points are given to the introduction. Furthermore, an instructor can include even more detailed elements that an introduction should include, such as a thesis statement, attention-getter, and preview of the paper’s main points.

Grading creative work

While exams, research papers, and math problems tend to have more finite grading criteria, creative works like short films, poetry, or sculptures can seem more difficult to grade. Instructors might apply technical evaluations that adhere to disciplinary standards. However, there is the challenge of grading how students apply their subject talent and judgment to a finished product.

For creative projects that are more visual, instructors might ask students to submit a written statement along with their assignment. This statement can provide a reflection or analysis of the finished product, or describe the theory or concept the student used. This supplement can add insight that informs the grade.

Grading for multi-section courses

Professors or course coordinators who oversee several sections of a course have the added responsibility of managing other instructors or graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) in addition to their own grading. Course directors need to communicate regularly and consistently with all teaching staff about the grading standards and criteria to ensure they are applied consistently across all sections.

If possible, the course director should address students from all sections in one gathering to explain the criteria, expectations, assignments, and other policies. TAs should continue to communicate grading-related information to the students in their classes. They also should maintain contact with each other and the course director to address inconsistencies, stay on top of any changes and bring attention to problems.

To maintain consistency and objectivity across all sections, the course director might consider assigning TAs to grade other sections besides their own. Another strategy that can save time and maintain consistency is to have each TA grade only one exam portion. It’s also vital to compare average grades and test scores across sections to see if certain groups of students are falling behind or if some classes need changes in their teaching strategies.

Types of grading

• Absolute grading : A grading system where instructors explain performance standards before the assignment is completed. grades are given based on predetermined cutoff levels. Here, each point value is assigned a letter grade. Most schools adopt this system, where it’s possible for all students to receive an A.
• Relative grading : An assessment system where higher education instructors determine student grades by comparing them against those of their peers. 
• Weighted grades : A method ussed in higher education to determine how different assessments should count towards the final grade. An instructor may choose to make the results of an exam worth 50 percent of a student’s total class grade, while assignments account for 25 percent and participation marks are worth another 25 percent.
• Grading on a curve : This system adjusts student grades to ensure that a test or assignment has the proper distribution throughout the class (for example, only 20% of students receive As, 30% receive Bs, and so on), as well as a desired total average (for example, a C grade average for a given test). We’ve covered this type of grading in more detail in the blog post The Ultimate Guide to Grading on A Curve .

Ungrading is an education model that prioritizes giving feedback and encouraging learning through self-reflection rather than a letter grade. Some instructors argue that grades cannot objectively assess a student’s work. Even when calculated down to the hundredth of a percentage point, a “B+” on an English paper doesn’t paint a complete picture about what a student can do, what they understand or where they need help. Alfie Kohn, lecturer on human behavior, education, and parenting, says that the basis for grades is often subjective and uninformative. Even the final grade on a STEM assignment is more of a reflection of how the assignment was written, rather than the student’s mastery of the subject matter. So what are educators who have adopted ungrading actually doing? Here are some practices and strategies that decentralize the role of assessments in the higher ed classroom.

• Frequent feedback: Rather than a final paper or exam, encourage students to write letters to reflect on their progress and learning throughout the term. Students are encouraged to reflect on and learn from both their successes and their failures, both individually and with their peers. In this way, conversations and commentary become the primary form of feedback, rather than a letter grade. 
• Opportunities for self-reflection: Open-ended questions help students to think critically about their learning experiences. Which course concepts have you mastered? What have you learned that you are most excited about? Simple questions like these help guide students towards a more insightful understanding of themselves and their progress in the course.
• Increasing transparency: Consider informal drop-in sessions or office hours to answer student questions about navigating a new style of teaching and learning.  The ungrading process has to begin from a place of transparency and openness in order to build trust. Listening to and responding to student concerns is vital to getting students on board. But just as important is the quality of feedback provided, ensuring both instructors and students remain on the same page.

Grading on a curve

Instructors will grade on a curve to allow for a specific distribution of scores, often referred to as “normal distribution.” To ensure there is a specific percentage of students receiving As, Bs, Cs and so forth, the instructor can manually adjust grades. 

When displayed visually, the distribution of grades ideally forms the shape of a bell. A small number of students will do poorly, another small group will excel and most will fall somewhere in the middle. Students whose grades settle in the middle will receive a C-average. Students with the highest and the lowest grades fall on either side.

Some instructors will only grade assignments and tests on a curve if it is clear that the entire class struggled with the exam. Others use the bell curve to grade for the duration of the term, combining every score and putting the whole class (or all of their classes, if they have more than one) on a curve once the raw scores are tallied.

How to make your grading techniques easier

Grading is a time-consuming exercise for most educators. Here are some tips to help you become more efficient and to lighten your load.

• Schedule time for grading: Pay attention to your rhythms and create a grading schedule that works for you. Break the work down into chunks and eliminate distractions so you can stay focused.
• Don’t assign ‘busy work’: Each student assignment should map clearly to an important learning outcome. Planning up front ensures each assignment is meaningful and will avoid adding too much to your plate.
• Use rubrics to your advantage: Clear grading criteria for student assignments will help reduce the cognitive load and second guessing that can happen when these tools aren’t in place. Having clear standards for different levels of performance will also help ensure fairness.
• Prioritize feedback: It’s not always necessary to provide feedback on every assignment. Also consider bucketing feedback into what was done well, areas for improvement and ways to improve. Clear, pointed feedback is less time-consuming to provide and often more helpful to students. 
• Reward yourself: Grading is taxing work. Be realistic about how much you can do and in what time period. Stick to your plan and make sure to reward yourself with breaks, a walk outside or anything else that will help you refresh. 

How Top Hat streamlines grading

There are many tools available to college educators to make grading student work more consistent and efficient. Top Hat’s all-in-one teaching platform allows you to automate a number of grading processes, including tests and quizzes using a variety of different question types. Attendance, participation, assignments and tests are all automatically captured in the Top Hat Gradebook , a sophisticated data management tool that maintains multiple student records.

In the Top Hat Gradebook, you can access individual and aggregate grades at a glance while taking advantage of many different reporting options. You can also sync grades and other reporting directly to your learning management system (LMS). 

Grading is one of the most essential components of the teaching and learning experience. It requires a great deal of strategy and thought to be executed well. While it certainly isn’t without its fair share of challenges, clear expectations and transparent practice ensure that students feel included as part of the process and can benefit from the feedback they receive. This way, they are able to track their own progress towards learning goals and course objectives.

Click here to learn more about Gradebook, Top Hat’s all-in-one solution designed to help you monitor student progress with immediate, real-time feedback.

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How does the uk university grading system work.

Whether you’re already studying or are about to, it is important to understand how the UK university grading system works.

When it comes to studying an undergraduate or postgraduate degree in the UK, grading systems vary. Whether you’re about to start your degree, or you are close to the third year of your course, it’s important to understand how your final grade will be calculated. Luckily, it’s easy to understand.

University grading: degree classifications explained

Universities in the UK follow a standard grading system for degree classifications based on the overall percentage achieved. The four university grade boundaries are:

• First-Class Honours (1st) (70% and above): Exceptional academic performance
• Upper Second-Class Honours (2:1) (60-70%): Strong performance, most common degree class
• Lower Second-Class Honours (2:2) (50-60%): Satisfactory performance, widely accepted by employers
• Third-Class Honours (3rd) (40-50%): Minimum passing grade for an honours degree

What is the postgraduate grading system in the UK?

The British postgraduate grading system differs quite a bit from the undergraduate one. Depending on whether you are undergoing an Integrated Masters Degree or a Standalone Masters Degree the grading system will differ. Like undergraduate, Masters Degrees are graded by creating a weighted average, combining all your module results from the year(s).

An integrated masters is one which follows directly from an undergraduate course. Common in Science degrees, where you apply for a four year course. In your second year you will be able to choose to either complete a Bsc (Bachelor of Science) or follow the path to achieve an MChem (Masters in Chemistry) etc. Integrated Masters degrees are graded the same as undergraduate degrees.

Standalone Masters include Masters Degrees by Research and Taught Masters Degrees. Masters degrees by research commonly referred to as MRes or MPhil are focused more on individual research skills with less taught modules. These degrees are usually graded as a pass or a fail.

Taught Masters degrees require a total of 180 credits. These credits are split between assignments, assessments and a dissertation or final project. Each module will have a certain amount of credits attached. For example, you may have single modules weighted at 15 credits, double modules (that span over two semesters) at 30 credits and a dissertation weighted at 60 credits. As taught, Masters Degrees are typically only a year long, every module counts to your final grade.

Instead of a First, Upper Second, Lower Second and Third, there are only three grade classifications for a Masters Degree. These are Distinction, Merit and Pass. The boundaries for these may vary depending on your university, however the common boundaries are shown below.

• Distinction: much like a First at undergraduate level, a Distinction is awarded when you achieve a percentage grade of 70% and above.
• Merit: you’ll be awarded a Merit if you achieve a grade average between 60-69%.
• Pass: a pass is awarded when you receive a grade average between 50-59%.
• Fail: If you do not receive at the minimum an average of 50%, the Masters qualification is not awarded. If you do think you are heading towards failing, try not to stress. You can speak with your module leaders about retaking any assignments or examinations to bump up your grade.

What can I do if I think I am going to fail my degree?

If you feel as if you are heading towards failing your undergraduate or postgraduate degree try not to panic. Easier said than done but you do have plenty of options.

As an undergraduate, you have three or four years to make up the credits you need to pass your course. Therefore, you are able to retake any modules you have failed in other years. For example, if you fail a Film module in first year, you can retake this module in your second year. If you fail numerous modules you are able to retake the entire year.

Another option is to retake any failed assignments or examinations throughout the year. This is easily done through referral or deferral assessments. Referral assessments are like resits, whilst deferrals allow students to postpone any assessments or extend any coursework deadlines. To qualify for a deferral you will need to prove that your performance has been affected by a personal circumstance (e.g. medical condition). To be granted a deferral you will need to fill out an application. Referrals and deferrals can be implemented at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Finally, if you feel as if your grade is an unfair reflection on your work you can submit an appeal. If you do this, your mark will be re-marked or looked back over by an examination board or your lecturers. Simply speak with your lecturers if this is something you would like to do.

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Our university grade calculator takes a percentage mark for each of your university courses (assignments or modules) or academic years, together with the percentage or credit weighting, and returns a weighted average for the parts you have completed so far.

How do I calculate my weighted university grade?

In order to work out your weighted average grade for your university year, module, or assignment, we take the marks (or grades) multiplied by their respective weights, sum them together, and then divide the total by the sum of the weights. An example is shown below, and the calculation is shown at the bottom of the results.

Example calculation

Student A is studying a degree in Computer Science and has undertaken three modules so far. They want to calculate their average weighted grade for the three modules.

Student A's average mark is therefore calculated at 64.5%.

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If you wish to carry out an unweighted calculation, simply leave all the weight boxes blank, or make them equal. If you want to work out the mark you require on your final exam, you can use our final grade calculator tool .

What mark do I need from the rest of my course?

Our calculator can help you work out the average mark you need from the remainder of your course, in order to achieve a target percentage, so that you can see whether you're on track to achieve the grade you want.

If you have any problems using our university grade calculator, please contact us .

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• Beyond “the Grade”: Alternative Approaches to Assessment

While so-called "alternative" approaches to grading are not new, attention to them has increased in recent years. This has been especially true since 2020, when COVID's disruption of our conventional modes of in-person education forced many instructors to rethink their approaches to assessment. Hand in hand with this more pragmatic rethinking came ethical considerations, as living through a pandemic unfolded alongside ongoing protests throughout the US against systemic racism and police violence, further leading instructors to question the biases inherent in, and efficacy of, the models they had long been using.

Among the alternative grading approaches that have received the most attention are specifications grading , contract grading , mastery grading , and " ungrading ." Each of these approaches is "alternative" in so far as it diverges in some way from a so-called traditional model of grading, which in its simplest and oversimplified form generally includes many of the following features:

Grades are given by the instructor to each individual student

The grade is often, but not necessarily, accompanied by more substantive feedback

Graded assignments are "high stakes," often because they are few in number, come later in the term, and/or may not be revised or resubmitted

Students have little say in creating assignments or in which assignments they complete

Students have little say in setting their own learning goals and few opportunities to reflect on their work in a course.

In practice, these general features of so-called "traditional" grading show up in different combinations in any given course. Overall, courses employing "traditional" grading tend to be more oriented towards product over process, and instructors in these courses hold more power over the assessment process than students do. Nonetheless, courses that employ traditional grading are not uniform in the ways in which student learning is assessed and graded.       

We encourage Harvard instructors to learn about and consider adopting some or all of the features of one or more of these alternative approaches to grading not because we consider traditional approaches to be inherently flawed, ineffective, or obsolete, but rather because we believe that contemplating alternative approaches in tandem with more conventional practices inevitably raises valuable questions not only about the particulars of how we are assessing our students' learning, but also about why we are asking students to perform in the ways that we are. To recognize that there are a wide array of plausible approaches to grading is to recognize that perhaps the single most important attribute of successful assessment schemes is their intentionality. 

Why Consider Alternative Grading?

Criticisms of traditional grading systems include: 

Grading systems exacerbate stress and mental health challenges among students (Horowitz and Graf, 2019; Jones, 1993).

Grades decrease students' intrinsic motivation (Pulfrey et al, 2011; Chamberlain et al, 2018).

Grading decreases students' ability to learn from feedback, as students tend to focus on a letter/numerical grade and not the accompanying feedback (Schinske & Tanner, 2017; Kuepper-Tetzel & Gardner, 2021).

Grading perpetuates inequities between students (Link & Guskey 2019; Malouff & Thorsteinsson, 2016; Feldman, 2018).

They may encourage students to be risk averse, nudging them towards courses and assignments in which they feel they can do well at the expense of new areas of potential interest and inquiry.

To combat these challenges, in recent years a significant number of individual faculty, educational researchers, and institutions from across higher education have invested in developing alternative approaches to grading—often referred to, broadly, as ungrading. While the exact details vary, these approaches typically:

Offer clear learning objectives that are aligned with how assignments are graded.

Provide transparent expectations for success.

Offer students regular and actionable feedback on their work.

Emphasize process over product, by providing students with multiple opportunities to meet expectations. If a student's first effort is not satisfactory, they may be able to revise and resubmit the work or complete another similar assignment.

Help students feel responsible for their learning and their grades by providing students with some agency over the breadth and depth of work that they undertake and giving students agency in defining their own goals and reflecting on their own growth as learner.

Offer a range of lower-stakes assignments, as opposed to a small number of higher-stakes assessments such as exams.

Overall, alternative grading aspires to recalibrate the way we evaluate and give feedback on students' work to incentivize learning and effort (rather than performance alone). These approaches provide clarity about expectations and provide students with the freedom to make mistakes as part of the natural process of learning.

A Brief Typology of Alternative Grading Approaches

Below we briefly describe four alternative grading strategies, which can be employed in a wide range of disciplines. We note that there is a lot of flexibility as to how instructors might implement any of these approaches, and that the approaches overlap with each other.

Specifications grading

In specifications grading, grades are based on the combination and number of assignments that students satisfactorily complete. The instructor designates bundles of assignments that map to different letter grades. Bundles that require more work and are more challenging correspond to higher grades. Students can choose which bundle(s) they would like to complete. 

Similar to mastery grading, the instructor defines clear learning objectives for all aspects of the course. Grading is based on meeting these objectives (satisfactory/unsatisfactory). Students typically have a small number of opportunities to resubmit work that didn't meet the standards.

Contract grading

With contract grading, the criteria for grades are determined by an agreement between the instructor and students at the beginning of the term. Each student signs a contract indicating what grade they plan to work towards, and contracts can be revisited during the term. Grades may correspond to completion of a certain percentage of work or completion of designated bundles of assignments (similar to specifications grading). Contract grading often emphasizes the learning process over the product, and as such, grading schemes may reward completion of activities (such as completing drafts and meeting individually with the instructor) as well as behaviors (such as being thoughtful in peer reviews and participating in discussions). Student work is graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis.

Mastery grading

In mastery grading, grades are directly based on the degree to which students have met the course learning objectives. An instructor first develops an extensive list of learning objectives, and then creates assessments that are aligned with these objectives. Student work is assessed on the basis of whether or not it meets a specified subset of the course objectives; partial credit is not awarded. Students are allowed multiple attempts to show mastery; depending on the nature of the assignment, students might revise their original submission or submit new work in response to related questions. The final course grade is based on the total number of objectives that the students has mastered. An instructor might designate essential objectives that everyone must meet to receive a certain grade, as well as bonus objectives that students could meet for a higher grade.

In classes that utilize ungrading, students are responsible for reflecting on and assessing their own learning. Instructors provide regular feedback on student work, but feedback on individual assignments does not include a grade. Instructors provide extensive guidance to help students reflect on their progress towards meeting their own learning goals. At the end of the term (and often at the midterm), students assemble a portfolio of work and assign themselves an overall grade for their course work. Final grades are at the discretion of the instructor; many instructors report that it is more common that they decide to increase—rather than decrease—the grade that students assigned themselves.

Support for Alternative Grading

Harvard faculty members who employ alternative grading strategies see themselves as a mentor and coach; they note that providing extensive feedback and mentoring can be more time-intensive than traditional grading. Faculty also note that alternative grading requires a high degree of trust between students and instructors. Nonetheless, the benefits are great: faculty feel that they can focus on fostering students' growth and learning, without judging or ranking their students. Moreover, students develop a sense of agency about their learning. 

The Bok Center would be happy to meet with faculty who are interested in modifying their approaches to grading. We encourage faculty to identify elements that resonate with your goals and to incorporate small changes into your teaching.

For more information ...

Blum, & Kohn, A. (2020). Ungrading (First edition). West Virginia University Press.

Chamberlin, K., Yasué, M., & Chiang, I.-C. A. (2018). The impact of grades on student motivation. Active Learning in Higher Education .

Feldman, J. (2018). Grading for equity: What it is, why it matters, and how it can transform schools and classrooms . Corwin Press.  

Horowitz, J. M., & Graf, N. (2019). Most US teens see anxiety and depression as a major problem among their peers. Pew Research Center, 20.

Jones, R. W. (1993). Gender-specific differences in the perceived antecedents of academic stress. Psychological Reports, 72(3), 739-743.

Malouff, J. & Thorsteinsson, E. (2016). "Bias in grading: A meta-analysis of experimental research findings. Australian Journal of Education .

Pulfrey, C., Buchs, C., & Butera, F. (2011). "Why grades engender performance-avoidance goals: The mediating role of autonomous motivation." Journal of Educational Psychology , 103(3), 683.

Schinske, & Tanner, K. (2017). "Teaching more by grading less (or differently)." CBE Life Sciences Education , 13(2), 159–166.

Stanny, & Nilson, L. B. (2014). Specifications grading: Restoring rigor, motivating students, and saving faculty time . Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Streifer, & Palmer, M. (2020)."Alternative grading: Practices to support both equity and learning." University of Virginia: Center for Teaching Excellence.

Supiano, B. (2019). "Grades Can Hinder Learning: What Should Professors Use Instead?" Chronicle of Higher Education .

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Creating Assignments and Grading Online with Gradescope

What is gradescope .

Gradescope is a tool designed to streamline and standardize the grading of paper-based, digital, and coding assignments. Gradescope allows for handwritten assignments to be graded digitally, and for multiple graders to collaboratively develop and implement their grading rubrics. It supports problem sets and projects as well as worksheets, quizzes, exams, and papers.  

Gradescope can be particularly useful for Science and Engineering instructors who need students to hand write formulas or draw diagrams–and who need to be able to respond in kind. Instructors and Teaching Assistants can grade simultaneously using an easy online interface that also allows for in-the-moment rubric creation and feedback, giving consistent grading across students and sections.

Gradescope is integrated into CourseWorks (Canvas). To add Gradescope to your course, enable it in your course navigation (refer to the instructions below).​

For a quick overview of Gradescope, refer to What is Gradescope? (video)

The CTL is here to help!

Seeking additional support with using Gradescope in your course? Email [email protected] or join our virtual office hours .

Interested in inviting the CTL to facilitate a session on this topic for your school, department, or program? Visit our Workshops To Go page for more information.

Cite this resource: Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2020). Creating Assignments and Grading Online with Gradescope. Columbia University. Retrieved [today’s date] from https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/teaching-online/gradescope/

In this video, Dr. Ivana Hughes , Director of Frontiers of Science and Senior Lecturer in Discipline in the Department of Chemistry, shares how she uses Gradescope to streamline grading in her Frontiers of Science course, which is part of Columbia College’s Core Curriculum.

In this video, Dr. Karl Sigman , Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, shares his experience using Gradescope to streamline assigning and grading homework and exams in his large enrollment courses.

Using Gradescope: A Basic Workflow

Step 1: set up gradescope in your courseworks (canvas) course and link your course roster.

• Enable Gradescope in CourseWorks (Canvas)

Figure 1: In your CourseWorks (Canvas) course, go to Settings [1] > Navigation [2], enable “Gradescope” [3], and click Save [4].

For more detail on modifying your course navigation to add Gradescope or other tools, read the Canvas Guide on Course Navigation .

• Link your Gradescope course with your CourseWorks (Canvas) course

Figure 2: Click on “Gradescope” [1], which now appears in your Course Navigation. This will take you to Gradescope where you will be prompted to create a corresponding “new Gradescope course” [2]. When you are finished, click “Link Course” [3].

• Sync your Gradescope roster with your CourseWorks (Canvas) roster. For instructions, see LMS Integration (Video, from 1:00-1:55). As students are added or removed from your CourseWorks (Canvas) roster throughout the Add/Drop period, you can simply re-sync your Gradescope roster to update it.

Step 2: Create your assignment or exam in Gradescope

• In Gradescope, go to the Assignments tab and click Create Assignment. You may choose either Exam / Quiz or Homework / Problem Set . (These categories are just initial pre-sets that you can later change to suit your assignment needs.)
• Select Student in response to the question, “Who will upload submissions?”
• Upload a PDF containing your assignment
• Set the rest of your assignment preferences.

The following resources show the basics for creating assignments and exams:

• Creating a Homework Assignment in Gradescope (Video)
• Setting up a paper-based assignment for remote assessment in Gradescope (Webpage) 
• Setting up a timed assignment in Gradescope (Webpage) Note that the timer will continue counting down if a student is offline. Also note that assignment due dates currently override any set time limits. We strongly recommend allowing students to gain familiarity with Gradescope via an assignment or a sample exam prior to using it for an actual exam.
• Creating an Exam (Video). Note: In Gradescope, an “exam” is templated with fixed fields where your students respond. Your students will need to download and print the template to be able to take an exam. If you don’t need templated fields, you can also use a variable length assignment as an exam.

Step 3: Link Gradescope with your CourseWorks (Canvas) Gradebook

In order to create a column for a Gradescope assignment in your CourseWorks (Canvas) Gradebook, you will first need to create an empty CourseWorks (Canvas) assignment. You can then link the Gradescope assignment to this corresponding placeholder assignment in CourseWorks (Canvas). This then allows you to post the grades to CourseWorks (Canvas) directly from the Gradescope interface. For more information, see this overview of LMS Integration (Video, from 1:55 – 2:55)

Step 4: Grade student submissions

• Develop a rubric for consistent grading. Gradescope allows you to develop / update your rubric while you grade. Any changes you make to your rubric are applied retroactively. See Grading a Simple Question (Video). Note: You can modify the assignment settings to allow students to see all, applicable parts only, or none of the rubric as part of their feedback.
• Make individual grade adjustments (e.g., additional points on top of the points added by the rubric) or add additional individualized comments. See Advanced Grading Options (Video).
• Use LaTeX. Gradescope supports LaTex. See Can I use LaTeX on Gradescope? (Website)
• Annotate documents. You can annotate directly on submitted PDFs using Gradescope’s pen, box, and text tools. See Annotation and Advanced Navigation (Video)
• Use AI-assisted grading. If you created a templated (fixed-length) assignment( e.g., students print, fill in, scan, and upload a worksheet) you can use Gradescopes AI-assisted grading to group similar responses to speed up grading. See AI-assisted grading (Video).
• Use coding autograders. If you would like to create programming assignments and grade them with a custom written autograder, see Creating a Programming Assignment (Video)

Step 5: Post your Gradescope grades to CourseWorks (Canvas)

Figure 3: To post your grades from Gradescope to CourseWorks (Canvas), click on the assignment in Gradescope [1], select “Review Grades” [2] in the navigation area at the left. Then, in the bar at the bottom of the screen, select “Post Grades to Canvas” [3].

Support Your Students in Using Gradescope

Share the following guides with your students to help them learn how to use Gradescope.

• For Students: Submitting PDF homework in Gradescope (PDF)
• For Students: Submitting PDF homework (Video)
• For Students: Viewing feedback & requesting regrades (Video)

Links and Resources

Faculty can reach out to Gradescope directly for support. Please write to Gradescope [email protected] to reach the Gradescope support team. 

Gradescope provides extensive documentation on their website. Visit the following links to get started:

• https://help.gradescope.com/
• https://www.gradescope.com/get_started

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The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning provides an array of resources and tools for instructional activities.

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Assessments and grades

Types of assessments, feedback and grades

Over the duration of your studies, you will be assessed in many different ways that will be relevant to your subject area. Your course has been designed to give you a variety of assessment experiences. This will mean that the assessment tasks for individual modules will be different to each other.

You will come across two main types of assessment activities:

• Formative:  You receive feedback and a mark that does not contribute to the overall module grade. 
• Summative:  The mark you receive will contribute towards the completion of your modules and overall grade.

The  academic calendar  contains University-wide assessment weeks, which take place at the end of our semesters; however, you may be required to submit work at any time during your studies.

Assessments, marking and grades

Assessment briefs.

Assessment briefs are summaries of each assessment activity that you will be asked to complete for your modules. Assessment briefs provide important information such as submission date, the size of the assessment (e.g. word limits), the weighting of activity (if there is more than one assessment point for your module), and additional information that you will need to complete the assessment activity successfully.

All assessment briefs have to be approved by University reviewers to ensure that they are appropriate, inclusive and provide all students with the opportunity to demonstrate that they have met the relevant learning outcomes of the module.

All approved assessment briefs are sent to academic staff from a different University (known as External Examiners), who provide an independent opinion of the proposed assessment. At this stage, the External Examiners have to approve the assignment brief before receiving it at the start of your modules.

Assessment unpacking

In the first few weeks of a module, you will be given an opportunity to discuss the details of the assessment brief to ensure that you understand the tasks that have been set. You will share your understanding of the assessment brief with the tutor, who will be able to address any queries and provide clarification.

Anonymous submission

Where possible, your work will be submitted anonymously. The nature of some assignments means that anonymous submission is not possible (e.g. presentations, practical examinations, oral examinations). When academic staff mark your work, you will only be identified by your student number and not by your name.  This is done to avoid any unintentional bias when your work is marked.

Marking your work

Each piece of submitted assessment will receive a percentage mark. Your marks will relate to  performance descriptors  that outline the generic characteristics of a piece of work at your level of study.  

To ensure consistency of marking across a module, every assessment activity is moderated by an independent member of staff (i.e. a member of staff who is not part of the module teaching team).  The role of the moderator is to ensure that the marks are at the appropriate level and that the feedback provided to you is appropriate, supportive and will allow you to develop and enhance your future work.

Feedback to students

You will be provided with your percentage mark and some feedback comments. The feedback will explain why your work has been given a particular mark.  It will also explain how you could improve this mark in future assessment tasks.

External grade approval

The external examiner will look at a sample of work from each module. At this stage, the role of the external examiner is to ensure consistency of marking within the module and that the level of the work is equivalent to that at other universities in the country.

Assessment boards

Your percentage mark remains unconfirmed until an assessment board has considered it. The role of the assessment board is to receive and confirm the marks for your work whilst applying our academic regulations to ensure our assessment processes have been consistent and fair. Assessment boards are chaired by a senior independent member of staff and take into account comments that have been made by the external examiner.

Academic appeals

The University academic appeals procedure is in place to enable students to appeal against the decisions of an assessment board , for example, where a grade has been recorded incorrectly, or there has been or an error in the application of the University regulations in a decision regarding progression, completion or classification.  Visit the  Academic Appeals  webpages for further details.

Academic integrity

We are committed to supporting the development of your academic integrity. This means that any work that you write or create has been produced in an honest, fair, and transparent way. Academic integrity is important for recognising and acknowledging the work of other people that you have used in the preparation of your assignments. We know, however, that there are occasions where academic integrity is not maintained (for example, through plagiarism, collusion and cheating), and that this may be unintentional or deliberate. These instances are known as academic misconduct. All examples of academic misconduct will be investigated and penalties may be applied if proven.

As a student, you will have access to a wide range of support services and resources designed to help you to develop your academic skills and to ensure the academic integrity of your work. In addition to the support available through your course, you can also access the Learning for Skills services provided by the libraries, both in-person and online.

Read the  academic integrity  policy for details.

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This article about how the UK university grading system was updated by the Great British Mag content team on 5 September, 2019

The UK grading system is not terribly different to the grading systems in China , India, USA or the EU. The top grades go to the people who excel and get very high percentages and the pass grades are given to anyone who manages to achieve the minimum grade percentage required. But that is where the similarities end.

Whereas other systems use the alphabet to demonstrate the achievements of the student, the UK system uses a class grade order. This system dates all the way back to the invention of the university itself and reflects the archetype of the British class system .

The UK grading system:

First (1 st ): The best grade you can get. The student has got higher than 70% on their course or assignment. An almost perfect piece of work. You should be very happy with it. The markers definitely were…

2:1 (upper second class): Student achieved between 60%-69%. The work was at a very good level, but there was still room for improvement. Kick back, smile and relax. You’ve done a good job! You will need to get a 2:1 or higher if you’re planning on staying on for a masters or post-graduate degree.

2:2 (lower second class): If you got 50%-59% on a course or assignment, then you have this grade. Even though it is not a perfect score it is still very good. You should still be happy about getting this mark.

Third: If you get between 45%-49%, you need to start thinking about where you went wrong. It’s not the worst mark, but perhaps some tutoring might help next time.

Ordinary degree: The absolute minimum you need to pass the course. Getting between 40%-44% is not where you want to be. You should definitely seek out some extra help if you want to do more than scrape by. Or maybe cut down on the time spent in the pub…

Fail: Anything below 40% constitutes failure. Sorry, but you will need to take the course again to pass.

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5 Basic Components of an Online College Course

Remote college courses rely on learning management systems and timely feedback from professors.

Basic Components of an Online Course

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Online courses can be either synchronous or asynchronous, and students should find a program that best suits their needs.

Thanks to modern technology, students no longer have to be bound to a physical classroom to pursue a college education. Equipped with a device and an internet connection, students can earn an associate, bachelor's or master's degree from the comfort of their own home.

“It’s the way of education, and it’s the way that students will go to school,” says Justin Louder, assistant vice president for academic innovation at Anthology, an education technology company that produces the learning management system Blackboard Learn. “A vast majority of students will take at least one online class a semester.”

Online learning is not necessarily a novelty, but its popularity has grown in recent years and is expected to continue. Online degrees have also experienced a wave of innovation and wider acceptance in recent years, says Louder, who previously oversaw online degree programs as associate vice provost of e-learning at Texas Tech University .

How distance learning is delivered varies among colleges and even professors, but most online courses have similarities, experts say. Here are five basic components of online courses students should be familiar with before signing up for classes.

The Learning Management System

When a student enrolls in an online course, they'll be asked to log in to a learning management system, or LMS.

For fully online courses, the LMS is where everything for class exists. On this platform, students can access their syllabus, see their professor's contact information and access most course materials, including online readings, videos, audio files and other resources. This is also where students participate in discussion boards – written exchanges with fellow classmates – and submit assignments.

Although some schools design their own learning management systems, most colleges use Blackboard Learn , Moodle , Canvas or Brightspace , and experts say most of these systems are similar and fairly intuitive.

"What is important for students to understand is how the professor has designed their course – including the overall structure, schedule, organization, content and resources, activities, and assessments and assignments," Eric Fredericksen, associate vice president for online learning and a professor at the University of Rochester in New York, wrote in an email. "A good practice is for professors to spend time at the beginning of the course to orient the students to the course in the LMS and to provide clarity on their expectations for students in the course."

Course Materials

The materials students use in online courses vary depending on the professor's preferences. Some online instructors prefer that students read e-books, while others suggest ordering textbooks. In some cases, the instructor may provide options, which could include a hard copy or a digital version, Fredericksen says.

"In the course I teach, I use a textbook that is part of a service from our library and students can access it and read it online at no cost to them," he says. "There are lots of different kinds of educational resources that can be used."

Other possible resources include podcasts, PowerPoint presentations, webcasts of lectures and instructional videos, which can be embedded into the LMS and available to students to watch on their own schedule. Lecture videos can also typically be made accessible to include captions and a transcript for students who need accommodations. Students can also download the audio from a lecture and listen to it on their own time.

“You think about different learning styles. Some students are auditory learners. Some students are more visual learners,” Louder says. "Online courses can appeal to all different types of learners."

Course Structure

Online courses are either synchronous, meaning students and professors are logged in and engaging at the same time like in a traditional classroom setting, or asynchronous, where students can complete assignments and watch lectures on their own time.

Undergraduate degree online courses tend to have synchronous components, such as a live class discussion, office hours or proctored exams, says Melissa Loble, chief academic officer at Instructure, an education technology company and creator of Canvas. Tools like Zoom allow instructors to conduct live lectures and break students off into small groups for further discussion.

However, the majority of classes tend to be asynchronous, experts say.

"For non-degree programs like certificates, synchronous components are more rare as they cater to a wide range of timezones and the needs of working professionals," Loble wrote in an email. "For synchronous classes, they tend to be bite-sized lectures. This is true for even courses that may have recorded content. The days of long lectures have passed, especially after COVID."

No matter the structure, a successful online course includes "high levels of interaction with the professor and their students, as well as between the students and their classmates," Fredericksen says. "This can happen synchronously or asynchronously. I believe professors need to be flexible, humorous, thoughtful and kind with their students – both online and in the traditional classroom."

As students gravitate more toward online courses, Louder says they can feel confident in the education they'll receive regardless of whether the class is synchronous or asynchronous.

“In a well-done, quality online course , student outcomes and success should mirror that of a face-to-face class,” he says. “You shouldn’t see a difference based on the modality of the course work."

Assignments and Group Projects

Students in in-person classes can expect to submit some of their work digitally, such as discussion board responses or term papers, but tests and other assignments may still be completed on physical paper. In online courses, everything is done virtually, whether a test or a group project.

Students submit their work through the LMS, where instructors can also share grading criteria and due dates. In addition to papers and discussion boards, students may be asked to create blogs or videos demonstrating their subject knowledge.

And just because online programs require less face-to-face interaction doesn't mean instructors don't require group projects. Online students usually conduct group projects through Zoom, Google Meet or another video conferencing platform. Text messaging and FaceTime calls also make it easier to complete group projects.

Professors can use the LMS to manually or automatically assign students to groups and provide a central location to share materials, Loble says. "Groups can then submit a single project to a professor for grading, as well as engage in peer review to provide feedback on the contributions each member of the group makes."

Loble says one of the biggest struggles for students in online courses when it comes to assignments is time management .

"When you are a student in an online course you have to be accountable for your own work remotely," she says. "This is hard for some students even with built-in reminders for due dates."

Online instructors use the LMS to grade assignments and give feedback. Instructors can also build online quizzes and other computer-graded activities, which can decrease the wait time for students to receive a grade.

"I do believe prompt feedback is essential for student learning," Fredericksen says. "And it is also important for professors to provide an expectation of when feedback and grades will be provided back to their students."

Alexandria Aguilera, who earned a master's in education through an asynchronous online program at Western Governors University , says she had the most interaction with her professors via virtual feedback.

"They gave very timely and detailed feedback in submitted assignments," she wrote in an email. "I even met with one one-onone to discuss the assignment I submitted. I was able to take their comments and suggestions and redo my work."

Online professors strive to create a sense of community with their students, so frequent discussion is crucial to a successful online course. Whether that's asynchronous through discussion boards or synchronous with live class discussions over video, it's common for professors to factor that participation into their grading.

To deter cheating on exams, most online professors use proctored exams or locked-down browsers. Most LMS platforms also include some type of artificial intelligence or plagiarism-detection software to ensure students submit original work.

"We are seeing an increased volume of professors giving in-person exams that are proctored, either by people or by video, during fully online courses to help address issues of academic integrity," Loble says.

Trying to fund your online education? Get tips and more in the U.S. News  Paying for Online Education  center.

What Employers Think of Online Degrees

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• Guides for Instructors >
• Assessment and Grading in Brightspace >

Grading in the Assignments Tool

Learn how to grade assignments directly within the Assignments tool in Brightspace. 

On This Page:

Beginning the grading process.

• Open the Assignments tool from the Course Navbar or from the CourseAdmin tool.
• Each course assignment is listed with information about the number of submissions and how many have been evaluated.
• Click on an assignment name to begin the grading process.

Default Grading View

The default grading view opens to the Users tab, where all students are listed. 

• For those who have made submissions, the link to grade the individual submission appears below their names. 
• If there is no submission, there is simply an evaluate link that allows the instructor to enter a grade.
• To view only those students who have made submissions, click on the Submissions tab.

Grading a Submission

To grade a submission, click on the submitted file name. This opens the grading window.

• The assignment will appear on the left side of the screen.
• If a rubric is being used to score the assignment, it will appear in the upper right corner of the screen.
• If a rubric is not being used, the score can be entered into the box for overall grade, also on the right.
• In addition, there is an editing window where written feedback can be entered.
• Once the grade is assigned, and feedback is entered, the instructor can click “publish” to immediately publish feedback to the student or “save draft” to allow for publishing all grades at the same time.
• In the very top right corner, there is a toggle for users.  This toggle can be used to move to the next submission.
• The Publish All button will now be available – click this to publish scored and feedback for all submissions.
• Students will not see their grades and feedback until these have been published.

Additional Resources

Templates for college and university assignments

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How to Convert (Calculate) Your GPA to a 4.0 Scale

Search for colleges using your gpa.

High schools often report GPA (grade point average) on a 4.0 scale. The top grade is an A, which equals 4.0. You calculate your overall GPA by averaging the scores of all your classes. This is a common scale used at most colleges, and many high schools also use it.

To convert your GPA to a 4.0 scale:

The chart is an example to assist in understanding the components to calculate a GPA. Your school may use a different grading scale.

Keep in mind that your high school reports your GPA to your prospective colleges. The GPA listed on your high school transcript might not be what is used by college admissions, since there is a lot of variation in high school grading scales, additional points added for honors, advanced, AP, IB courses.

For admissions, many colleges will recalculate student GPA so there is consistency/equity across applicants based on institutional standards and may not include all high school coursework or weights.

Contact your high school counselor or colleges on your list to learn more about GPA and use in the admissions process. You can also look up the academic requirements of your favorite colleges using   College Search  and see how your GPA compares to students who got in and enrolled.

What are letter grades and how do they convert into percentages?

Common examples of grade conversion are: A+ (97–100), A (93–96), A- (90–92), B+ (87–89), B (83–86), B- (80–82), C+ (77–79), C (73–76), C- (70–72), D+ (67–69), D (65–66), D- (below 65).

However, the way letter grades convert to percentages can vary slightly from college to college and may even vary between departments in the same college.

How do you calculate your GPA in high school?

To calculate your high school GPA, add together your grades on the 4.0 scale after converting them from letter grades, and divide the sum by the number of classes you are taking.

Additionally, many high schools use a secondary GPA system called a "weighted GPA system." The weighted GPA system adds extra weight to courses at the Honors, AP, and IB levels. The weighted GPA system can vary between school districts, so talk to your counselor about how your particular high school’s weighted GPA system works.

What is the average GPA?

The average GPA across all U.S. high schools is 3.0 while the average GPA across all U.S. colleges is 3.1. These numbers will vary significantly between school districts and colleges. If you’re wondering what the average GPA is for the college’s you are interested in, you can see the GPA range for admitted students on BigFuture’s college profiles.

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Grading Information for Students

 See Delaware's Grading System from the Undergraduate & Graduate Catalog for information on:

• How we grade you
• How your GPA is calculated
• Academic Standing, Probation and Dismissal

Use the GPA Calculator to predict what your GPA will be for the semester.

Listener/Withdrawal Clarification

The University grading policy applies the same to integrated courses and labs as it does to all other courses.

A student has the option to be enrolled in a course for standard grading (letter graded), on a pass/fail basis, an audit (listener) basis or he/she may withdraw from the course. The enrollment/grading basis may be changed by the student through the last day to change registration or withdraw from courses, which occurs in the eleventh week of a semester. No credit is earned if a student is enrolled in a course on a listener basis or withdraws from the course. A course taken on a pass/fail basis does not normally count toward degree requirements, except as an elective.

The difference between the listener and withdrawn status is attendance which is expected for listeners and not permitted for withdrawn students. The course instructor may assign a grade of “LW” if a listener does not attend sufficient class meetings. Only grades of “L” or “LW” can be assigned if a student is enrolled on a listener basis.

University policy permits students to enroll in labs and integrated courses on a listener basis. A student may have a different enrollment basis for each course component of an integrated course in which the student is enrolled.  If enrolled in a lab or lecture on a listener basis, a student may be required to attend but cannot be required to participate in the lab or any assignment.

In the case of co-requisites, if a withdrawal is initiated for one course, the system will also automatically drop the course for which it is a co-requisite. To remain enrolled in this course, the student would need the permission of the offering department prior to withdrawing from the other course.

Mid-Term Grades

Undergraduates who are in their first or second UD semester, both freshmen and new transfer students, have a mid-term grading period during the seventh week of the Fall and Spring semesters. See the  Academic Calendar  for dates.

Final Grades

Final grades are typically submitted 72 hours after the Final exam.  To view your grades:

• Login to your  UD Student Homepage .
• Click the  Grades & Transcripts  tile.
• Click the menu item  View Grades  and select the term.

Incomplete Work

Students unable to complete course requirements - with the approval of the instructor - have a limited amount of time to finish the course. Generally, coursework must be completed by the  tenth day of classes in the following full semester  (i.e. 10th day of Spring for Fall or Winter course work and 10th day of Fall for Spring or Summer course work).

Grade change requests

Should it be necessary, students can petition for a change of grade with the instructor. See the  Grade Grievance policy  in the  Student Guide to University Policies .

For further questions, undergraduates should contact their  Student Service/Assistant Dean's Office . Graduate students should contact the  Office of Graduate and Professional Education  at (302) 831-8745.

CURC - Committee on Undergraduate Records and Certification

This committee reviews student academic records at the end of fall and spring semesters and considers requests for changes to the academic record. See  CURC details  for what the Committee can and cannot do, how to submit requests, and information on understanding grade point average.

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Participation Project #17 -Queries 3

Access Participation Project #7

Assignment Files

Submissions.

You must submit your completed file(s) through the CS101 Submit Assignments tool .

This assignment is due on Thursday, March 21, 2024. For on-campus sections, it is due by the end of class. For online sections, it is due by 11:59:59 PM Eastern Time. Late work will not be accepted.

This assignment is worth 8 points. A grading rubric is provided at the end of the assignment instructions. Over the entire semester, students must complete at least 20 Participation Projects to earn a maximum of 160 points.

Help & Resources

This video is also available on YouTube [1] .

Associated Learning Objectives

This assignment covers the following course and unit learning objectives:

• B. M. Powell, Access: Queries III Participation Project . West Virginia University, 2021. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc-xBtGrhaQ .
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