Grading of Courses

To maintain a balance between evaluating undergraduate student achievement of learning outcomes and maintaining academic standards, the University has agreed on grade-descriptors setting out broad standards of achievement of learning outcomes for the key course-grade bands (A, B, C, and D). These grade descriptors are designed so that both students and faculty can share an understanding of what is necessary to achieve the grade.

The development of grade descriptors reflects the move from norm-referencing, where students are graded with reference to their peers, to criterion-referencing, where student performance is evaluated against the achievement of learning outcomes.

Guidelines for Use of Undergraduate Course Grade Distribution Bands outline the University’s experience with course grading and criterion-referenced assessment since adopting outcome-based education in 2008.

The grade descriptors and guideline course grade distribution bands are intended to:

• Set out the institutional standards for instructors in designing course assessments to ensure they are sufficiently challenging to allow differentiation of student performance;
• Provide students with a referential standard that they are expected to achieve;
• Provide existing distributions of grades as a benchmark for departments as they review course grades;
• Encourage uniformity of practice to ensure fairness of treatment of students;
• Discourage grade inflation over time.

Sampling of assessed work for review

To ensure that marks or grades are awarded appropriately and consistently with adherence to the pre-designed rubrics and assessment criteria, a post-assessment moderation system is introduced.

1. For assessments that contribute 30% or more towards the final course grade of course with class sizes of at least 20:
   • • Two items of students’ work rated in each of the following categories of standard of achievement of the assessment criteria should be second marked (maximum 8 samples): “Excellent Performance/Achievement”, “Good Performance/Achievement”, “Satisfactory Performance/Achievement” (or “Marginal Performance/Achievement” for postgraduate courses), and “Fail”.
     • Assessments marked initially by the Course TA should be second marked by the Course/Section Instructor or another faculty member nominated by the Course/Section Instructor.
     • Assessments marked initially by the Course/Section Instructor should be second marked by another faculty member nominated by the Course/Section Instructor.
     • In all cases, the Course/Section Instructor should agree the final mark for the sampled assessments in consultation with the TA/other faculty member as appropriate.

2. For samples of assessments marked initially by the Course TA and where the marks differed significantly from those awarded by the second marker, the Course/Section Instructor should second-mark all students’ work for the assessments concerned and award the final marks. 

3. For samples of assessments marked initially by the Course/Section Instructor and where the marks differed significantly from those awarded by the second marker, the Course/Section Instructor should ask the Head of Department/Division to identify another faculty member to second-mark all students' work for the assessments concerned and agree on the final marks to be awarded with the Course/Section Instructor.
4. Samples of students’ work that had been second marked would be retained by the Department/Division for consideration by external reviewers during periodic program review.
5. The name(s) of the second marker(s) of a Course/Section shall be recorded on the grade reporting system.
6. Heads of academic Departments/Divisions will be responsible for administering the above and ensuring adherence.

Further implementation details are given in the page of “FAQ on Sampling and Second Marking Implementation”.

To safeguard academic standards and prevent grade inflation over time, it is good practice for faculty to review grade distributions annually or after each offering, in regard to historical distributions for their courses, to determine whether the assessments were sufficiently challenging to allow differentiation of student performance and to monitor the standards of marking. To this end, each term Course Instructors and Heads of Department/Division are provided with the grade distributions of their courses for the three previous years, for reference.

The following Grade Distribution Guideline Bands are derived based on the University's past grading experience for undergraduate courses, providing the reference for the design of assessments wherein a sufficiently challenging course will normally have grades fall within the guideline bands:

The Guidelines for Use of Undergraduate Course Grade Distribution Bands acknowledge that there are justifiable variations in grade distributions among Schools and between introductory courses (levels 1000 or 2000) and advanced courses (levels 3000 or 4000); and that there is no intention to use a rigid rule to artificially force course grades to a preset distribution, which would go against the spirit of academic freedom and criterion referencing.

However, where undergraduate course grades fall outside the above guideline bands, faculty and instructors assigning grades should consider a further review of the assigned marks/grades, where appropriate, to assure themselves that the marks/grades are assigned with strict adherence to the preset grading rubrics and course ILOs consistently across all teaching members in the same course. Additionally, the review should also ensure that the grading decisions are academically justified for further explanation to the Head of Department in the course of grade approval.