Grading deadlines in International Studies: a delicate subject
Grading is a delicate subject to discuss. Students most of the time are eager to know the mark for their assignments or exams, so the sooner the results are in, the better. On the other hand, lecturers are less interested in the result, and feel that good feedback is the most important element of the grading process. After all, we only learn from our mistakes if we know what we did wrong. These different viewpoints can clash: faster results can come at the expense of the quality of feedback. High quality feedback will result in longer periods of uncertainty for curious students.
by Programme Manager Jaap Kamphuis
Regulations
It is a good thing that our University has drawn up regulations with regards to the grading process. That way lecturers know exactly how much time they can dedicate to giving feedback, while students know exactly when they can expect their results. Well…not exactly. We noticed that many students have little knowledge about the relevant regulations and that they can be hard to find on the website. So even though lecturers are more up to speed when it comes to knowledge about grading periods, even for them the following can be helpful.
OER
The OER, the Course and Exam Regulations, of the Faculty of Humanities contains a number of rules regarding assessment in Article 4.6. For the grading (in the OER marking) period, this comes down to the following:
- Exams should be graded and entered into the study progress system (uSis) within 15 working days of the day on which the examination took place (please note that there can be one day between the processing of the grade and the publication of the grade, this due to the way uSis works).
- If the examiner is unable to comply with the period of 15 working days, the student is notified through Blackboard and email. The notification contains the latest date by which the student will be informed of the result.
- There should be at least 5 working days between notifying the student of the result and the resit.
To give you an example based on these rules: The Final exam for Introduction to International Studies was on 18 December 2018. This means that the grades should have been processed at the latest on 17 January 2019 (since weekends and holidays do not count). The grades were actually processed on 11 January, so 3 workdays before the deadline. Since the Resit was on 30 January, there was enough time between the processing and publication of the grade of the Final exam and the Resit.
Thesis grading period
For the thesis, there are different rules, as there is even more feedback involved in thesis grading and at least two examiners. The regulations can be found in the Regulations and procedures concerning the bachelor’s thesis. The basic rules are:
- A thesis is graded within four weeks of handing it in.
- During the summer, between 1 June and 1 August, the term is extended to a maximum of six weeks.
Marking in practice
This clash of expectations, students asking for fast results and lecturers needing time for providing feedback, can cause certain tensions. In a programme like International Studies, in which lecturers and tutors generally have to grade over a 100 exams, often for more than one course, on top of a large number of final essays, marking generally takes the full period that is set for grading (or even more), in contrast to many programmes with only a small number of students per cohort, sometimes as low as 2 or3. It is important to stress that the International Studies administration manages to get by far the most grades published on time and when the time period is extended, students are almost invariably informed in advance. I say “most” and “almost”, as there are always cases in which this does not happen, however seldom, but there is fortunately always enough time between the publishing of the results and the Resit.
Hopefully the explanation of the relevant regulations provided above will make clear to all concerned what can be realistically expected.