Grades Administration - Academic Planning, Achievements, Alerts

Note: In addition to Academic Planning, Grades Administration applies to Achievements and some Alerts, including Midterm Grade.

Overview

Grades listed in Academic Planning Administration display what each grade in your SIS and LMS represent.

Grades Administration provides the ultimate flexibility as it allows SS&E to accommodate the way each individual institution uses any type of grade in all areas across the organization.

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Configuration

Grades are entered from Grades Administration listed under the Academic Planning Administration menu, found here.

  • We recommend adding every type of grade that may appear or be used by faculty in your LMS or SIS system so that SS&E can find the grade and be able to determine what it means. 
  • These grades are also used in grade related Automated Alert and Achievement configuration criteria when selecting valid grades/what exact grades may trigger the alert/achievement.

To add a new grade in SS&E, select +New and enter the following fields as needed.

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Grade (Required)

The grade itself, as it would appear in your SIS/LMS. For example, "A", "B", "NA", "W", etc.

Description (Required)

A description of the grade to help users understand the meaning of the grade.

Passing

Whether or not this grade should be considered as a "passing grade" for a course.

  • This is used by Academic Planning to determine whether or not the grade displayed on a completed transcript course record represents a completed passed/failed course.
  • Completed courses contribute to the completion of a "course group" or academic plan template requirements.

Rank (Required)

A whole number represents how the grade compares to other grades, i.e. how good is the grade in comparison to other grades.

  • The lower the rank, the better the grade.
  • For example, an "A" might have a rank of "1", a "B" might have a rank of "2", etc.
  • It is possible to have multiple grades with the same rank if so desired.
  • This is used by SS&E when comparing grades, such as in Academic Planning.

For example, a course on an Academic Plan Template may state that a "C" is the minimum grade required to complete a course, and the "C" has a rank of 3. This means that any student earning a grade with a rank equal or lower to a C rank (1-3) will pass the course and satisfy the minimum grade requirement.

Minimum Percent

The minimum percentage grade that is classified as this grade.

  • For example, a "B" grade might require at least an 80.0%.
  • This is used to map a percentage grade to a letter grade.

Maximum Percent

The maximum percentage grade that qualifies for this grade.

  • For example, a "B" grade might have a maximum percent of 89.9%.
  • This is used to map a percentage grade to a letter grade.

Visible for Plan Templates

Whether or not this grade is available when creating or modifying Academic Plan Templates.

Default Value for Plan Template

When checked, this grade will default as the "minimum grade" required when adding courses to Academic Plan Templates.

  • For example, many institutions set this to true on the "C" grade.
  • When the default/minimum grade is set to C, this indicates that any grade below a C represents an incompleted course, while a student grade of C or above is a completed course.

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