Online Course Peer Review

Rubric standard III.2 reads: The grading policy is easy to locate and understand. I didn’t give this standard a great deal ofthought until I became an online student a few semesters ago. Asa student, the grading policy is the first thing I’msearching for in an online class — and I read it carefully and frequently. How am I evaluated? Which activities are worth the most points? What percentage do I need to maintain to earn that A? It’s nice to have it all there. No surprises, please!

A grading policy is more than just a scale of set percentagesrequired to earn certain letter grades. It also includes information about how activities arescored andhow the final grade is calculated. Ideally, the grading policy will be clearly visible asan individualitem on the course content page. The tendency can be to separatescoring informationinto several places– generallywith each course activity. That being said, posting grading information directly in course activity instructions, or providing a quicklink to the grading policy withinactivityinstructions,is a good idea. Repeating important course information is not a bad thing –it’s just less frustrating for the student if allcourse grading information is available in one, easy-to-find place, as well.