QOTD: When will my summer grades be posted online?
This seems to happen at the conclusion of every course I take. All of a sudden, all assignments are turned in, all tests have been taken, and there's nothing left to read or study. The only thing left to do is obsessively check the course website for an updated transcript. "Obsessive" being the key word here, as all the energy I used (wouldn't it be great to have a better word for this?) during the class is now channeled into one aim: getting the grade. This prompts most people to irritate the instructor over email. I hate to do this because, in theory, the more people do it, the slower grades get posted.
Instead, it's a good idea to go back to the instructor's syllabus and calculate the grades yourself. In my most recent course, I can account for nearly 70% of my grade. Using the Mercer weighted average calculator, I can play around with the remaining 30% to get an idea of the range my final score should fall into. This is useful information, because if the grade comes out substantially different, that warrants contacting the instructor.
In the past, I've been satisfied with the whole-letter grade that shows up on transcripts, as opposed to getting the exact numerical number. In theory, however, it would be useful to know how close I came to crossing into a different letter grade. This, again, would require contacting the instructor, which is still ordinarily annoying. Also, as I move into more advanced courses, it seems the grading systems get increasingly vague, which makes it harder to see meaning in the shades of grey.
As to the actual mechanics of how a grade is assigned and posted, it's my understanding that the instructors first work up a final list of grades for the entire class that they then must manually transcribe from their gradebook to the registration system. On weekday mornings, from midnight to approximately 6am, the IT department performs a full backup of the college's records. At the conclusion of this backup, they then apply all the new grades that have been submitted for each student's transcript.
In my case, the course ended this Monday, so that gives the instructor until tomorrow to submit our grades before the 48-hour deadline. This means the earliest I would see the grade show up is Thursday morning. Of course, due dates can be missed. This seems to happen in courses where the instructor is left with an immense amount of reading to do after the course is over. Some instructors are faster readers than others. If, however, the grades aren't submitted by Thursday night, then they won't appear on transcripts until Monday of next week.
In a worst-case scenario, grades won't post until the date listed on the college calendar: August 13.
Well, this seems to be a happy accident that I was able to answer the question in the process of writing the entry. There might be more to this question, however...
update: my grade posted today. (Wednesday morning)
Instead, it's a good idea to go back to the instructor's syllabus and calculate the grades yourself. In my most recent course, I can account for nearly 70% of my grade. Using the Mercer weighted average calculator, I can play around with the remaining 30% to get an idea of the range my final score should fall into. This is useful information, because if the grade comes out substantially different, that warrants contacting the instructor.
In the past, I've been satisfied with the whole-letter grade that shows up on transcripts, as opposed to getting the exact numerical number. In theory, however, it would be useful to know how close I came to crossing into a different letter grade. This, again, would require contacting the instructor, which is still ordinarily annoying. Also, as I move into more advanced courses, it seems the grading systems get increasingly vague, which makes it harder to see meaning in the shades of grey.
As to the actual mechanics of how a grade is assigned and posted, it's my understanding that the instructors first work up a final list of grades for the entire class that they then must manually transcribe from their gradebook to the registration system. On weekday mornings, from midnight to approximately 6am, the IT department performs a full backup of the college's records. At the conclusion of this backup, they then apply all the new grades that have been submitted for each student's transcript.
In my case, the course ended this Monday, so that gives the instructor until tomorrow to submit our grades before the 48-hour deadline. This means the earliest I would see the grade show up is Thursday morning. Of course, due dates can be missed. This seems to happen in courses where the instructor is left with an immense amount of reading to do after the course is over. Some instructors are faster readers than others. If, however, the grades aren't submitted by Thursday night, then they won't appear on transcripts until Monday of next week.
In a worst-case scenario, grades won't post until the date listed on the college calendar: August 13.
Well, this seems to be a happy accident that I was able to answer the question in the process of writing the entry. There might be more to this question, however...
update: my grade posted today. (Wednesday morning)