• Section 1 - Purpose
• Section 2 - Policy
• Section 3 - Procedure
• Confidentiality of marks and grades
• Grades
• Conversion of marks 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
• Review of grade process
• Informal enquiries
• Formal review of grades
• Review of grade application requirements
• Grade point average
• Section 4 - Guidelines
• Section 5 - Glossary

Section 1 - Purpose

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

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

Section 2 - Policy

(2) This procedure supports the Assessment Policy.

Section 3 - Procedure

Confidentiality of marks and grades

(3) Charles Sturt University (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 normal work duties.

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

Grades

(5) The Assessment Policy lists grades that may be awarded or used to: 

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

(6) The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) approves the table of grades attached to this procedure, which provides detailed descriptions and 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 assessments or to record various types of withdrawal from a subject
3. grades that are no longer used by the University but which have been used in the past.

Conversion of marks to grades

(7) Students’ assessment marks will be converted to grades that record their level of achievement in the subject, in accordance with the following:

1. The ranges of marks and grade definitions as set out in the Assessment Policy and Table of Grades.
2. An aggregate mark that is within 0.5 marks below the bottom of the mark range for a grade 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.
3. Notwithstanding the overall marks achieved, where a subject has hurdle assessment(s) and/or other requirements that must be met to pass the subject, or a student has completed additional assessments/exams, these may affect the resulting grade (as per the Assessment Policy and Course and Subject Information Procedure).
4. The grade schema conversion of a student’s overall mark to a grade may be overridden with a fail grade or non-achievement grade such as AA, AE, TA or FNS.

Approval and release of students’ grades

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

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

1. Subject Coordinators will enter recommended grades in Grade Centre.
2. The Head of School (or nominee) will sign off that assessment in the subject is complete and the grades will be loaded into Banner.
3. The Faculty Assessment Committee will consider the grades and, after any adjustments, approve them.

(10) 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

(11) 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 nominee), it will be loaded into Banner.
3. The Faculty Assessment Committee will receive reports of late grades/grade changes recommended to it and may approve the late grades/grade changes or may decline to approve them.
4. Where a 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

(12) Where an administrative grade has not been replaced with a final grade in the time frame approved by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) (see the Table of grades), Student Administration may replace the administrative grade with a fail grade.

Extension of time-frame to expire a GP grade

(13) A Deputy Dean may extend a GP (grade pending) grade beyond the normal expiry timeframe stated in the Table of grades. The extension will be:

1. no later than the last day of the following teaching period, or
2. where a student needs to attend an intensive school or complete a practicum to complete the subject assessment, until the student’s next opportunity to attend/complete these activities.

(14) The Head of School (or nominee) will recommend such extensions to the Deputy Dean on the advice of the Subject Coordinator and/or Course Director.

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

Academic transcripts

(16) 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.

(17) 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.

(18) 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.

(19) Where a student is in debt to the University, the Manager, Examination and Results or the Manager, Timetable and Completion may decline to issue them a transcript or to provide them with access to an online transcript, until they either:

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

Review of grades

(20) Subject to clause 21, a student is entitled to ask, without fear of reprisal, for an explanation or review of their published grade for a subject on one or more of the grounds stated in the Assessment Policy.

(21) The Student Misconduct Rule states that a penalty that reduces a student’s mark (for an assessment) or grade (for a subject) prevents the student from making any other application in relation to that mark or grade, including a review of the grade.

Review of grade process

(22) The Head of School (or nominee) or Deputy Dean (if the Head of School has decided the student’s original mark/grade) will assess the review of grade request and/or assign it to another academic staff member/academic role for review and recommendation as follows:

1. A reviewer cannot be a person who decided any of the student’s original marks in the subject.
2. Where the request is in effect a request for second marking of an assessment task, it can be assessed by a single reviewer.
3. Where the request relates to a grade for a work-integrated learning placement, the Head of School (or nominee) will be the reviewer, in consultation with the Associate Dean (Workplace Learning) (or equivalent).
4. Where the request relates to a grade for a research component in a coursework course, the Head of School (or nominee) that offers the subject will be the reviewer, in consultation with:
   1. the Sub Dean (Graduate Studies) or Course Director, and
   2. if the student’s principal supervisor is in a different school, the head of that school.

Informal enquiries

(23) A student who believes their grade is inaccurate because of a calculation error or administrative error/omission can make an informal enquiry with the Subject Coordinator by either:

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

(24) An informal enquiry must be made within seven calendar days after the date on which the student is notified of the grade.

(25) Where a student’s informal enquiry finds an administrative error/omission or error in the calculation of the grade, it will be corrected and any resulting change to the grade will be processed as a change of grade.

Formal review of grades

(26) A student may request a formal review of their published grade as follows:

1. For a review of grade in a subject other than subjects delivered by the School of Policing Studies, students must use the online review of grade form.
2. For a review of a grade in a subject delivered by the School of Policing Studies, students must apply directly to the school.

(27) The relevant faculty’s Subjects Administration Team will assess the applications and 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

(28) A formal review of a grade request must be made within 14 calendar days after the date the student is notified that their grade has been released.

(29) A review of grade may be subject to the following fee(s):

1. No fee is charged for a student’s timely application for review of a fail (FL) or unsatisfactory (US) grade.
2. Where the grade is a passing grade, the student must pay the review of grade fee to have their request considered, which will be refunded if the request results in a decision to change the grade.
3. Late applications (received and accepted more than 14 days after the date the student is notified of the grade) will incur a non-refundable late application fee.

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

(31) A separate application must be made for each subject where a review of a grade is sought.

(32) Student Administration (or the School of Policing Studies as relevant) 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.

(33) 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

(34) 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.

1. Where the student has been granted credit with grades for subjects, these grades are also included in the GPA calculation.
2. Where a student has attempted a subject more than once, the grades for all attempts, including fail grades, are included in the GPA calculation. 

(35) The table of grades 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.

(36) 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.

(37) The GPA is used to decide whether:

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

Section 4 - Guidelines

(38) Nil.

Section 5 - Glossary

(39) This procedure uses terms defined in the Assessment Policy, as well as the following:

1. Banner – the University's student management system.
2. Expire – of an administrative grade, means to replace an administrative grade with a fail grade where it has remained in place past a time 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.