MDC | Virtual College | Faculty Resources

Virtual College - Learning @ Your Time @ Your Place

Course grades are one of the two documents that must be kept for a minimum of (4) years to satisfy College and SACS requirements. Not only are the final grades required to be kept but also all grades that determine the final grade are to be kept. The VC downloads the WebCT grade book for each course at the end of the term along with the other document that is required to keep, the syllabus. It is highly recommended that you do the same for all your courses. You will learn how to manage the grade book later in this workshop.

Grades of incomplete should only be given to students that have completed at least 2/3 of the course and can present either:

Documentation for medical or family emergencies such as a death or illness
Evidence of severe technical problems where they notified you or the VC through email or submitted a technical trouble report. If the technical difficulty was quickly resolved then that would not be sufficient reason for an incomplete.

Step One: When the instructor grants an incomplete the student must be presented with a student contract clearly stating all the conditions for completing the work and changing the grade. The conditions of a contract should prompt a student to complete the work as soon as possible.

You can find the VC Incomplete Grade Contract under forms in the Faculty Lounge. Complete the fields, save the file with the student's name in the file name, send it to the student as an attachment to an email (either WebCT or external), and have the student respond to your email acknowledging agreement to the contract and provide an external email address for receiving their grade change later. This must be completed before the term is over in order to issue the incomplete grade on the grade roll.

Step Two: Forward the student's email with the grade contract attached to the VC within (5) business days of the close of the term. The VC maintains this contract on file for a one-year period. It is recommended that you also keep these contracts to help you keep track of your students and to complete the VC Grade Change Forms.

Step Three: Notify the VC Student Coordinator that the student needs access into either the student's past course or your new term's course. Monitor the completion of contracts by sending students reminders and updates on their progress. Students have until the end of the next major term (Fall or Spring) to complete an incomplete grade contract. If it is not completed by then the grade will turn into an F. The sooner the student completes the contract the better the chances are that they will complete it successfully.

Step Four: When the student satisfies the incomplete you will need to complete and submit a Virtual College Grade Change Form, which is available in the Faculty Lounge under Forms. To complete this form you will need to review the student's original VC Incomplete Grade Contract to get the student's full name, social security number, the course reference number, course title, term, and external email.

Also, you will need to provide a brief explanation of why the grade was changed (completed required work, etc). The VC prints this form and attaches it to the MDC grade change form for documentation.

Use Step Four for making other grade changes. However, if a student is withdrawn and the instructor witnesses that the student completes the work and wants to change the grade, the student must first be reinstated.

F's and Required Records of the Last Day to Access Course
Starting Fall 03 all faculty will be required to enter the last day the student attended class next to any F's that are entered in Odyssey. This means that purging students is mandatory for Virtual College. If a student never accesses your course they never came to class so they should be purged.

There always seems to be at least 2 or 3 that never find their way. You will learn how to use the student tracking tools in WebCT to find the first and last date of access. Also, you will learn how to download your roster from the VC portal to find contact info that may not be in Odyssey.