Office of the University Registrar

This post is another update to a previous entry, available here: Faculty: Spring into web grading this quarter.

It’s the day after grades were due for Spring quarter and the verdict is in: web grading is a hit! It’s amazing how quickly faculty embraced this new process, which indicates its usefulness for everyone involved in the grading process.

Spring quarter grades by submission type: Over 50% submitted by web grading!

Just over half—51%—of grades for the quarter came in through Web GradeBook. That’s an impressive statistic considering this is the first quarter for which online submission has been widely available (a “soft rollout” was available Winter 09, but not heavily advertised). We look forward to this number increasing over the next few quarters as more faculty discover the convenience—and benefit to students—of web grading.

The Office of the University Registrar thanks all those faculty who submitted their grades via web grading, and to Catalyst, the Office of Information Management, UW Technology, and everyone else who helped bring this project to fruition.

Today—Monday, June 15—is the deadline for grade submission for Spring quarter. Please make sure all grades are submitted by one of the following times:

• 10 a.m. for grades submitted by paper-based Faculty Grade Reports (more info)
• 5 p.m. for grades submitted by Web GradeBook (more info)

Remember, students count on timely submission of grades for financial aid, acknowledgement of scholastic achievement, and other reasons. However, if you do miss the deadline, please read follow the instructions for paper-based grading or web-based grading.

This post is an update to a previous entry, available here: Faculty: Spring into web grading this quarter.

Graph of web grading submissions for SPR09.

Many faculty are taking advantage of Web Grading’s convenience to submit grades early. In fact, four times as many faculty—65% of whom are new to Web Grading this quarter—have submitted spring quarter grades over the web than they did for the same period in winter quarter! And those faculty have submitted six times as many grades as this time in winter quarter: over 1,900 so far. By comparison, no grades would have been available on the 11^th day of the grading period prior to web grading’s launch last quarter.

Although final grades for most University courses will not be available until finals week, the successful early adoption of Web Grading by faculty whose classes are able to be graded at this time is a good leading indicator for the rest of the quarter.

What does this early adoption mean for students? Most importantly, it offers peace of mind to those who know their grades more than a week before they would under paper-based grading. For instance: They know their financial aid won’t be jeopardized by late grades. It also provides a student ample time to discuss a grade with the instructor before either leaves for break.

The Office of the University Registrar again thanks OIM, UW Technology, Catalyst, and all of our collaborators for creating the Web Grading system.  It gives convenience and the gift of precious time to hundreds (soon thousands) of  our faculty.  For tens of thousands of students, it ensures peace of mind and the timely granting of financial aid, honors, course prerequisites, and a long list of other benefits.

Registrar Todd Mildon recently encouraged faculty to submit Spring quarter 2009 grades via Catalyst’s Web GradeBook. That message is reposted below.

I am writing to encourage you to submit spring quarter grades online to Graduations and Academic Records through the Catalyst GradeBook tool.

The online grading service is open and available now through June 15.  I hope that it will save you a significant amount of time, and that it will eliminate the delays and frustration associated with our old paper grading process.  In addition to the anticipated gains for faculty, I know that students will benefit from the online system’s speed and efficiency when final grades arrive sooner than was reasonably possible in the past.

Thanks to a partnership between my office [The Office of the University Registrar], the Office of Information Management, and UW Technology, we first offered online submission at the end
of winter quarter.   Almost 49 percent of all winter grades submitted on time came in online.  More importantly, we learned a great deal from this first experience with online submission and have worked since then to make it even easier.

The current spring grading period opened May 26th at 8:00 a.m. and closes June 15th at 5:00 p.m.  Please note that after this deadline, grades cannot be submitted online.  Please note also that you can submit grades via Catalyst GradeBook even if you have not used it to track grades throughout the quarter.

For instructions on how to get started with online grade submission, please visit this page:

http://catalyst.washington.edu/help/gradebook/about_online.html

FAQs about online grade submission are answered on the Registrar’s Web site:

http://registrar.washington.edu/staffFaculty/webgradingFAQ.php

If you need assistance with GradeBook, please send an e-mail to catalysthelp@u.washington.edu.  For questions about the University’s grading system or other grade-related questions, please contact the Graduation and Academic Records office at ugradoff@u.washington.edu, or 206-543-1803.

Two applications built upon the UW’s Student Web Services (SWS) infrastructure were highlighted in an article in University Week on April 30. This publicity will introduce the services to a wider University audience and help the tools gain more faculty users.

The article, titled “Two new tools for UW teachers: An online grade book and photos of their students,” discusses the positive impact Web GradeBook and Photo Class Lists have had on academics since their recent launch. It includes some positive feedback from teachers (which was shared in an earlier post on this blog) and impressive use statistics for Web GradeBook.

More importantly, though, the article acknowledges the efforts the Registrar’s office took in keeping sensitive student data secure while enabling it to be “set free,” and highlighting the cross-department nature of the projects. Designing, implementing, sharing, and maintining projects of this scope and importance to the University’s mission takes a coordinated effort, and the Registrar’s office is pleased to be part of the team making it happen.  Other critical members of the team include the Office of Information Management, UW Technology, Learning & Scholarly Technologies — as well as several academic units.

Since its launch March 2, nearly 10,000 grades have been submitted via Web GradeBook—that’s more than twice the number submitted via the paper process. Keep them coming!

Feedback

We’ll keep a list of feedback from the University community here, and include attribution where appropriate.

“I am not sure where to direct this appreciation, but I wanted to let those know who were involved in creating the electronic grading system just how valuable it is and how much appreciated. It is an extremely significant innovation for me given my travel schedule and the difficulty I experienced in submitting paper-based grade reports. The new GradeBook system is more evidence to me that I belong to a great university. Please extend my thanks and appreciation to the right people and program for the hard work that resulted in this accomplishment.”