Communicating grades and returning assignments

The University of Ottawa has the legal obligation to comply with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) with respect to the collection, use and disclosure of students’ personal information, including their grades. Therefore, the final marks associated with the student number cannot be posted on your office door (or elsewhere). Emailing class grade lists to students or posting grades on a professor’s website is prohibited. Students should have access to their own grades only. All grades must be communicated to each student using the University of Ottawa’s secure online applications. Note that the Virtual Campus (Brightspace) is not the official portal for final grades, only the Grade Roster in uoCampus is (uoZone for students).

Return assessed work only to the student who produced it, unless that student has consented to its disclosure to another individual. If assessed work is returned to students outside of class hours, it should be done under the supervision of professors, teaching assistants or administrative staff. Never leave students’ assessed work unattended in a public area.

Students have the right to see, upon request and after they have been marked, their own final examination booklets. This consultation must be done under supervision (Academic Regulation A-8.3).

Submission of final grades

According to Clause 21.1.3 g in the APUO Collective Agreement and Clause 5.2.2 in the APTPUO Collective Agreement, final marks must be submitted within 10 working days after the date of the final examination, in uoCampus. This applies also to the date specified for the submission of a take-home exam or final essay.

The Office of the Registrar completes a data capture 24 hours after the deadline for entering all final grades in the student information system. Many reports and lists are generated so that the academic records of all students at the Faculty can be reviewed. Hence the importance of meeting the official grade submission deadline.

Delay in submitting final grades can result in various consequences for students, such as:

• causing automatic deregistration from upper courses
• preventing fourth-year students from graduating
• causing a student to lose a scholarship or bursary
• jeopardizing a student’s admission to graduate studies

In addition, all delays in submitting grades create additional work (as late entries are inputted by hand, individually, instead of in batch) for staff at the Faculty’s Undergraduate Studies Office, who are in the process of starting a review of the academic standing of all undergraduate students at the same time.

How to submit final grades in uoCampus?

The complete guide is here, but below is a reminder of the steps.

Procedure for direct grade entry:

a. From My Schedule in your Faculty Center, click the Grade Roster icon to the left of the class you want.

b. In the Roster Grade column select the appropriate grade for the student from the list.

c. Repeat step b for each student in the list.

d. If you are not entering all the grades at this time, select Not Reviewed in the Approval Status list and click Save. (After selecting this option, you will be able to change grades for this selected class.)

e. If you have entered all the grades and will not make additional changes, select Ready for Review from the Approval Status list and click Save. (After selecting this option, you will not be able to change grades for this class.)

Entering the same grade for multiple students:

a. In the class list, select the checkboxes to the left of the names of the students to whom you want to assign the same grade.

b. Select the appropriate grade from the list to the left of the Add This Grade to Selected Students button.

c. Click the Add This Grade to Selected Students button.

d. If you are not entering all the grades for this class at this time, select Not Reviewed in the Approval Status field and click Save. (After selecting this option, you will be able to change grades for this class.)

Upload grades from an Excel spreadsheet to your Grade Roster

If you have entered your grades in Excel, you can upload them directly to the Grade Roster of a course you have selected in your Faculty Center. The Excel file can be one you’ve used during the term, downloaded from BrightSpace.
Before you start: Rename the Excel file with the extension .xlsx. For example, if your Excel filename is class4000.xls, rename it class4000.xlsx. Make note of the columns in your Excel file where you’ve entered student numbers and student grades. For example, if the column containing student numbers is the first column and the one containing student grades is the third one, you will need to enter numbers 1 and 3 when importing your Excel file (see step e. for details)

a. From My Schedule in your Faculty Center, click the Grade Roster icon next to the desired class.

b. Under Grade Roster Action, click Upload to Grade Roster.

c. On the Upload to Grade Roster page, click Browse.

d. Click Choose File, select the Excel spreadsheet for this class and click Upload.

e. In the File Mapping section:

• • Type the column number containing your student numbers (e.g., 1) in the EMPLID column number field.
  • Type the column number containing your student grades (e.g., 3) in the GRADE column number field.
  • When done, click Load.

f. The grades are now uploaded to the Grade Roster. The Grade Roster displays the following information:

• • Empl ID: Student number
  • Full Name: Student name
  • Grade Input: Grade entry list
  • Convert To Grade: Grade converted to Alpha grade (if applicable)
  • Official Grade: Official grade after final approval
  • Grading Basis: Grading scheme for this class
  • Status: Either Success or Error

g. Make sure that there is a grade entered for every student. If your Excel spreadsheet does not have a grade for a student, no grade will be uploaded for this student; however the status will still indicate Success. If necessary, select the grade from the list.

h. If there is an error, Error will be displayed in the Status column. You will need to select the grade from the list.

i. Click Submit to Grade Roster at the bottom of the page. Click OK. If an error message is displayed, repeat step g or h.

For assistance, contact the Service Desk at 613-562-5800, extension 6555.

Grade review

According to Academic Regulation A-9,  students who question a grade assigned to them must contact their professor first for clarifications or for the reasoning behind the grade. If students still question the grade despite the explanations they receive, they can ask the Director of the Academic Unit that offers the course for a grade review, in accordance with Academic Regulation A-9.

Keeping students’ grades

Professors must keep students’ partial grades (tests, quizzes, labs, assignments, etc.) for at least one year. This is because some students write supplemental or deferred exams up to 6 months after the end of the course. The professor will have to determine the final course mark when the student has finally passed the exam.

Disposing of students’ work

Unclaimed assessed work and exams must be disposed of properly using bins that will be sent to professional shredding. Please check with your Academic Unit.