In-Class Tests 

When preparing your course outlines, please be aware of the test and examination restriction period before scheduling any in-class tests.  During this restriction period, which occurs near the end of classes in a given term, no test or examination can be given.  The specific dates covered can be found on the website for the Office of the Registrar (under “Dates and Deadlines” and the tab for Sessional Dates).

If you think that there may not be enough space in your classroom to spread students out for testing purposes, your Administrative Assistant can put in a request with the Scheduling and Examinations Office to get a testing room for you.  You are advised to put in your request early in the term.

If you are holding an in-class test partway through a term, you can ask your Administrative Assistant to arrange for copies of the test to be produced instead of making the copies yourself.  However, please allow sufficient notice of at least 5 business days. Your Department can also provide certain supplies for your test, such as scantrons, answer booklets, and some spare pencils. For larger classes, it’s good practice to give a couple weeks notice to allow time for ordering supplies.

Missed In-Class Tests

Check with your Department if they have introduced procedures that make it easier for instructors to deal with missed in-class tests.

Final Examinations 

Final examinations are held in December for first term courses and in April for second term courses.

Early in each term, you will be asked to complete an examination questionnaire for each course you are teaching in that term.  You will be asked if you plan to have a final examination and, if so, you will be asked to provide some information about the examination (e.g., the length of the examination and how many people will grade it).  This information will make it possible to prepare the examination schedule for that term.  If you wish, the Registrar’s Office will schedule and invigilate the final examination for you. If you do not make this arrangement, you will be responsible for invigilating your final exam.

Instructor responsibilities are outlined in the Undergraduate Examination Policy and Graduate Examination Policy.

Optical Mark Reader (OMR) Scanning 

If your test or examination has multiple-choice or true/false questions, optical scanning will be needed to process the results.

Visit the Media Production Service (MPS) website to learn more about test scanning through the Optical Mark Reader (OMR).  It is particularly useful to read the material under the tabs “Helpful Information” and “Submissions.”

Your Administrative Assistant may be able to assist you with preparation for OMR scanning. You are responsible for taking the envelope of scan sheets and the completed request form to MPS (Printing Services) in Temporary Building 34 (which is just to the right of the L. R. Wilson Hall when walking from KTH). You are also responsible for picking up the test results from that location.

Delivery and Pick Up of Tests or Examinations 

Instructors are responsible for delivering scan sheets and picking up test results from MPS when they are using OMR scanning.  However, instructors are also responsible for delivery and pick-up in two other ways.

First, if students have an accommodation from Student Accessibility Services (SAS) which permits them to write an in-class test in the SAS Testing Centre (located in MUSC B101), instructors are responsible for uploading a copy to the SAS Instructor Portal and for picking up the completed tests from that office.

Second, instructors are responsible for picking up final examinations that have been invigilated by the Registrar’s Office (by going to a temporary office in the Ivor Wynne Centre during the examination period).

Please be aware that you will need to present your McMaster employee identification card (i.e., your “Working at McMaster” card) when picking up tests or examinations from the locations noted above.

Checking for Academic Dishonesty 

McMaster University takes academic dishonesty seriously. It is recommended that you examine the university’s Academic Integrity Policy, which outlines issues associated with plagiarism and cheating, and also explains the formal procedures to follow when it is detected.

McMaster also has an Academic Integrity Officer who can advise instructors on how to deal with cases of academic dishonesty and familiarize them with the procedures that have to be followed under the Academic Integrity Policy.

McMaster University subscribes to Turnitin.com as a means of checking student papers for signs of academic dishonesty.  If you are interested in using this web service, you can contact the Academic Integrity Officer to get more information.  You will need to put a statement in your course outline which gives students fair warning that Turnitin.com will be used in your course.  The language for this statement is set out in the PDF document (discussed earlier) that covers the university’s Undergraduate Course Management Policies.

According to the Provisional Guidelines on the Use of Generative AI in Teaching and Learning at McMaster, instructors decide if/to what extent generative AI is acceptable in their course. You should clearly communicate to students if and to what extent generative AI is acceptable in the course outline, verbally in-class, and in assessment descriptions (sample syllabus statements are available at the bottom of the Guidelines). Unless otherwise stated, students should assume use of generative AI is prohibited. Generative AI plagiarism detection software is currently unavailable or not recommended at McMaster. This software will continue to be reviewed and may be used in the future.

Preparing and Releasing Grades 

Using McMaster’s Grading System 

If you are teaching and undergraduate course, you will use the undergraduate grading scale; if you are teaching a graduate course, you will use the graduate grading scale.  These grading scales are used when grading tests or assignments during the term and to establish the final course grades for students.

In recent years, there have been increasing concerns around grade inflation. The Faculty of Social Sciences developed Grading Guidelines to provide guidance to instructors and Chairs about how to address this issue.

Reporting Grades on Course Work 

The “Grades” section of Avenue to Learn provides a useful basis for letting students know their grades on multiple choice tests, tutorial or seminar participation, or other components of course work where it is difficult or impossible to return something to students.

More options exist for written course work, such as term papers or assignments.  You may choose to have some written work submitted through Avenue so that you or your TAs can comment on the work and grade it online, but you may instead choose to have students submit hard copies of written work and then return the graded work to them in class.  Both approaches are adopted at McMaster.

You should not be returning grades or course work in a form that publicly identifies the students (e.g., posting a list of grades with student names/numbers).

Calculating and Submitting Final Course Grades 

Final course grades are released through Mosaic. This overview video shows how to submit final grades to MOSAIC from Avenue to Learn. Or you can  review how to export grades from Avenue, use Excel to calculate then submit final grades to Mosaic. If you need technical assistance with submitting final course grades, please contact our Teaching Support Portal.

Students shouldn’t be able to calculate their final grade or have access to their final grade through Avenue before they are officially released. Final grades need to be released officially through Mosaic after the appropriate approvals.

All final grades are due within 7 days of writing the final exam. If there is no scheduled final exam, final grades are due 7 days after the last class. Final grades cannot have any decimal places. If a student did not write the final exam, you need to put ‘DNW’ (Did not write) in the Notes Column. Every Student on the roster must have a numeric grade value for submissions to be accepted, even if that grade is ‘0’.

Conducting Course Evaluations and Receiving Results 

At McMaster University, course evaluations are done online in the last few weeks of the term. Your Department will send an email message to all instructors with some information about the upcoming evaluations. Since students complete the evaluations online rather than in class, you simply need to remind students about the evaluations and encourage them to complete the evaluations.

Results of the course evaluations will be sent to you soon after you have submitted the final grades for all your courses.

Grade Changes 

In some cases, it may be necessary to change a student’s grade after final grades have been submitted (e.g., mathematical error in the calculation of the final grade). This is also done within Mosaic (see this video).

Incomplete Grades

Under exceptional circumstances you may approve an extension for a student to complete work in your course after the course has finished – normally this extension is in the range of a few weeks. In the interim, you must assign an Incomplete grade (INC) at the end of the course. A student who receives an incomplete grade must complete their work in time for you to report the grade by the sessional deadline noted as ‘Final Date to Submit Results of Incomplete Grades’. If the INC grade is not cleared by the deadline, an F grade will normally be entered.

Disposal of Exams and/or Assignments 

Any work that identifies a student’s grade or ID number must be shredded. Final exams must be kept for at least one year by the department. Please submit your Final Exams and Midterms to your Department at the end of the term. You must also keep records of your grades for a least one year. Instructors are strongly encouraged to submit their grade breakdown to their Department. Students can request to view their final exams up to one year after the exam is written.

Post-contract Work (for Sessional Faculty) 

In the event of post-contract work (because of deferred exams, requests for re-grades etc.), note that the CUPE Collective Agreement for Sessional Faculty has a post-contract payment provision. Normally an instructor re-grades material and provides the deferred examination copy. For the latter, please remember to maintain academic integrity and design a new deferred exam and not a simple repeat of the previous exam.