Faculty Gold and Online Quality
Assurance at CCCOnline

Chapter 6 Grade-book [ Table of Contents ]

Your class grade-book is another area for regular communication with students. A grade-book which is regularly updated with students' gradable assignments clearly identifies students' academic progress. All students know that you have received their work and they in turn have received at least one of your comments on that work. CCCOnline requires that faculty post the final grade for the course in the course grade-book.

Rubric:

Best:

• Grade-book is updated regularly to reflect current assignments
• Columns are organized in a straight-forward manner
• A final-grade column is included
• Comments on student work is included in the grade-book

Good:

• Grade-book is somewhat current, but may be missing some grades
• All appropriate columns are included, but organization is lacking

Needs Improvement:

• No final-grade column is included
• Grades are not updated until the end of the term

Why:

Grade-books have an important role in your communication with students throughout the semester. A grade posted in the grade-book lets students know that you have received their assignments and have commented on it. Prompt posting of grades on your part can alleviate many communication issues, the most common being “I didn’t realize you hadn’t received my paper.”

Grade-books also have an important role in resolving any student issues once the course has been completed. The administrative arm of CCCOnline maintains copies of grade-books for use when a student requests a grade review after the end of the term. The grade-book becomes substantiation for either a change of grade because it was posted incorrectly (grades are still sometimes hand-entered at the colleges) or leaving the grade as posted.