• Section 1 - Purpose
• References
• Section 2 - Glossary
• Section 3 - Policy
• Section 4 - Procedure
• Confidentiality of marks and grades
• Grades
• Rounding of marks in conversion to grades
• Approval and release of students’ grades
• Late grades and changes to grades
• Conversion of expired administrative grades to fails
• Extension of time-frame to expire a GP grade
• Academic transcripts
• Review of grades
• Informal enquiries
• Formal review of grades
• Review of grade application requirements
• Grade point average
• Section 5 - Guidelines

Section 1 - Purpose

(1) This procedure supports the Assessment Policy by stating detailed requirements for:

1. submitting and approving grades and changes to grades; and
2. review of grades when requested by a student.

References

(2) Where a supporting document is referred to in this procedure, it will be listed on the associated information tab.

Section 2 - Glossary

(3) Most of the terms used in this procedure are defined in the glossary section of the Assessment Policy. For the purposes of this procedure, the following additional terms have the definitions stated:

1. Banner – the University's student management system.
2. Expire – of an administrative grade, remain in place past a deadline when the grade must be converted to an achievement grade.
3. My eQuals – an online repository of students’ transcripts and qualifications, used by Charles Sturt University and all other Australasian universities, to ensure the integrity of student results and qualifications, and protect against fraudulent claims of results and qualifications.

Section 3 - Policy

(4) This procedure supports the Assessment Policy and should be read alongside it.

Section 4 - Procedure

Confidentiality of marks and grades

(5) The University handles students’ marks and grades as confidential personal information. Staff must not release marks or grades to anyone other than the student, without the student’s written permission to do so. This rule does not apply to staff viewing a student’s grades on secure university systems for the purposes of their work.

(6) To help students compare their performance to that of other students, however, the Subject Coordinator may provide information on distributions of marks or grades, provided individual students’ performance is not identified.

Grades

(7) The Assessment Policy lists:

1. grades that may be awarded to: 
   1. indicate a student’s level of academic and/or professional achievement in a subject; or
   2. record that a student has been granted graded credit in a coursework subject;
2. grades that may be awarded to indicate a student’s level of achievement in a research component subject for a bachelor (honours) course; and
3. grades that may be used to record that a student has been granted ungraded credit for a subject.

(8) The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) approves the table of grades attached to this procedure, which provides detailed descriptions of, and states conditions for the use of:

1. achievement grades and credit grades listed in the Assessment Policy;
2. grades used for administrative purposes where a student has not yet completed all subject assessment or to record various types of withdrawal from a subject; as well as listing
3. grades that are no longer used by the University but which have been used in the past.

Rounding of marks in conversion to grades

(9) When a student’s overall mark for all assessments in a subject is converted to a grade, it will be rounded as follows.

(10) Where the aggregate mark is within 0.5 marks below the bottom of the mark range for a grade, it will be rounded up to the whole number at the bottom of the mark range. For example, marks of 49.5-49.99 will be rounded up to 50 and will be converted to a PS (pass). Default Grade Centre grade schemas are set up to round in this way and should not be altered.

(11) The grade schema conversion of a student’s overall mark to a grade may, however, be overridden with a fail grade or non-achievement grade such as AA, AE, TA or FNS.

Approval and release of students’ grades

(12) Students’ grades in subjects will be approved and released no later than three weeks after the end-date of the relevant final exam period.

(13) Grades will be approved and released by the following process.

(14) Subject Coordinators will enter recommended grades in Grade Centre.

(15) The head of the teaching school or their nominee for this work will sign off that assessment in the subject is complete and the grades will be loaded into Banner.

(16) The School Assessment Committee will consider a report of the grades and, after any adjustment, recommend them to the Faculty Assessment Committee.

(17) The Faculty Assessment Committee will consider the grades and, after any adjustment, approve them.

(18) Faculties should not delay approval of final grades for release to students because a minority of exam scripts or assessment items for a subject are outstanding.

Late grades and changes to grades

(19) The process for approval and release of late grades, changes to permanent grades, and replacement of temporary grades with permanent grades, is as follows:

1. Staff will use the online change of grade functionality to enter and request approval of these late grades/grade changes.
2. Once such a grade request has received provisional approval from the Head of School or their nominee for such approvals, it will be loaded into Banner.
3. If the grade release date for the relevant session has already passed, the system will notify the student that the grade has been updated.
4. The School Assessment Committee of the teaching school will receive reports of late grades/grade change requests provisionally approved since its previous meeting.
5. The committee may recommend the grades/grade changes to the Faculty Assessment Committee for approval or may decline to approve them.
6. The Faculty Assessment Committee will receive reports of late grades/grade changes recommended to it for approval by school assessment committees.
7. The committee may approve the late grades/grade changes or may decline to approve them.
8. Where either a school assessment committee or faculty assessment committee declines to approve a late grade/change of grade, the teaching school will:
   1. initiate the online change of grade process to change the grade as directed by the relevant committee; and
   2. if the grade is being changed from a higher to a lower grade, contact the student before the grade is updated, to explain the reason why the grade is being changed.

Conversion of expired administrative grades to fails

(20) Where an administrative grade has not been replaced with a final grade in the time-frame approved by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) for the administrative grade to remain in place, the Division of Student Administration may replace the administrative grade with a fail grade.

Extension of time-frame to expire a GP grade

(21) A Deputy Dean may approve an extension of the time-limit for expiry of a GP (grade pending) grade, beyond the normal expiry time-frame of 12 months after the end of the session for which the GP grade was entered.

(22) The Head of School will recommend such extensions to the Deputy Dean, on the advice of the Subject Coordinator.

(23) Any such extension cannot be past the last day of the following session unless, to complete the subject assessment, the student needs to attend an intensive school or complete a practicum. In these cases, the extension can be until the student’s next opportunity to attend/complete these activities.

(24) Where the Deputy Dean grants an extension, the school will advise the student.

Academic transcripts

(25) The Division of Student Administration will provide students who graduate from a course with access to their online transcript in the My eQuals service, unless they are in debt to the University.

(26) Students may buy an official hard copy transcript at any time unless the University has barred their access to their results because of debt or for another reason.

(27) Students may view their unofficial academic history in the student portal, and may print this, at any time, unless the University has barred their access to their results because of debt or for another reason.

(28) Where a student is in debt to the University, the Senior Manager, Partners, Enrolments and Compliance or the Senior Manager, Graduations, Examinations and Timetabling may decline to issue them a transcript or to provide them with access to an online transcript, until they:

1. pay the relevant fine, fee or other charge; or
2. make an arrangement to pay that is satisfactory to the University.

Review of grades

(29) A student is entitled to ask for an explanation of, and/or request a review of, their published grade for a subject.

(30) The Student Misconduct Rule, however, states that a penalty for academic misconduct of a reduced subject grade or fail grade in a subject overrules other assessment decisions such as review of the grade.

Informal enquiries

(31) An informal enquiry is the appropriate channel for a student who believes their grade is inaccurate because of a calculation error or administrative error/omission. See the next section below for the matters that must be handled as a formal review of the grade.

(32) To discuss their grade informally with the Subject Coordinator of the subject, a student may:

1. contact the Subject Coordinator directly; or
2. where the Subject Coordinator is not contactable, contact Student Central asking to discuss the grade with the Subject Coordinator.

(33) Students must make such a request within seven calendar days after the date they are notified of the grade.

(34) Where a student’s informal enquiry leads to an administrative error or error in calculation of the grade being identified, it will be corrected and any resulting change to the grade will be processed as a change of grade.

Formal review of grades

(35) A student who wishes to seek a review of their published grade in a subject must apply for this as follows:

1. Students will apply for a review of grade in a subject (other than subjects delivered by the School of Policing Studies) using the online review of grade form.
2. Students will apply for a review of a grade in a subject delivered by the School of Policing Studies, by applying directly to the school.

(36) The relevant faculty’s Subjects Administration Team will assess online review of grade applications and will only forward them to the Head of School for review if they meet:

1. one of the grounds for review of a grade stated in the Assessment Policy; and
2. the application requirements stated below.

Review of grade application requirements

(37) Students must apply for a review of a grade within 14 calendar days after the date the grade was notified to them.

(38) No fee is charged for a student’s timely application for review of a fail (FL) or unsatisfactory (US) grade.

(39) Where the grade is a passing grade, the student must pay the prescribed fee to have their review request considered, which will be refunded if the request results in a decision to change the grade.

(40) Late applications will incur a late application fee.

1. The Head of School will decide whether to accept the application because there are exceptional circumstances.
2. If the Head of School accepts the application, the Division of Student Administration will request a late application fee be raised. 

(41) The student must submit a separate application for each subject where they are seeking a review of a grade.

(42) The Division of Student Administration (or, for review of grade requests to the School of Policing Studies, the school) will notify the student of the decision. Where the grade remains the same or is replaced by a lower grade, the notification will give the reasons for this.

(43) Once a student’s grade has been reviewed by this process, no further application for review of the grade will be considered.

Grade point average

(44) The University calculates the grade point average (GPA) of students’ achievement grades in subjects they have completed for a course and records this GPA against the course on transcripts of grades.

(45) Where the student has been granted credit with grades for subjects, these grades are also included in the GPA calculation.

(46) Where a student has attempted a subject more than once, the grades for all attempts, including fail grades, are included in the GPA calculation. 

(47) The table of grades attached to this procedure shows which subject grades are included in the GPA calculation and the value they are assigned for the calculation; it also shows the subject grades that are not included in the calculation.

(48) In the GPA calculation:

1. the GPA value of each GPA-eligible grade is multiplied by the volume of learning points of the subject for which the grade was awarded; then
2. these multiplied figures for all grades are added together; then
3. the total is divided by the total of all the subjects’ volume of learning points, to give the GPA; then
4. the GPA is rounded to two decimal places.

(49) The GPA is used to decide whether:

1. students will have certain awards conferred with distinction;
2. to grant students prizes and scholarships; and 
3. to admit students to other courses.

Section 5 - Guidelines

(50) Nil.