Academic Settings: Grades & Attendance

The Grades & Attendance settings let you establish letter grade scales, pass/fail grade scales, and various attendance requirements. These apply globally to all your programs; however, if you need to differentiate any of these items for any of your programs, you can do so when you set up or edit those programs.

Grade scale

The grade scale defines your letter and number grades, their effect on grade points (and, therefore, GPAs), and which grade(s) constitute a course failure.

• Letter indicates which letter grade the student receives—on everything from assignments to transcripts.
  • Do you need different letters for your letter grades besides the "standard" A - F? Contact Populi customer support and we'll be happy to add the letters you need. Keep in mind that if you do so, you will not be able to edit your grade scales yourself—you'll just need to ask us to make those updates for you.
• Minimum points shows the minimum number grade (on a 100-point scale) required to get the letter grade. Anything below that number will receive the next appropriate lower letter. In the above example, any number grade between 90 and 91.99 would get an A—.
• Direct equivalent shows the number grade entered on the student's record if their instructor selects a letter grade (as opposed to entering a number grade that gets converted to a letter). Typically, this number is the median of the minimum points from one letter grade to the next highest.
• Grade points shows the value of the letter grade in GPA calculations.
• Fail indicates whether the grade is recorded as a failing grade. Failing students will not earn any credits/hours for that course.

Adding and editing grade scales

Here's how to add or edit a grade scale—but first, a few notes:

• Grade scales can be connected to individual academic years and/or terms. When you link a scale to a year, it will go into effect as of the first term of that year and remains in effect until the next year for which you define a grade scale. If you link a scale to a term, it will only affect students and courses in that term.
• You cannot edit historic grade scales if you imported historic academic information into Populi.
• Editing historic grade scales will affect what's shown on student transcripts!
• The above notes are also true for Pass/Fail grade scales (see below).

1. Click add to create a grade scale, or edit to modify an existing grade scale.
2. Select an academic year or term.
3. Change the letter grades using the drop-downs. Change the points by editing the numbers.
4. Check the Fail column where appropriate.
5. Click add a grade to create a new letter grade row, and modify it as needed.
6. Click and drag to re-order a grade row within the grade scale.
7. Click to delete a grade row.
8. When you're finished, click Save.

You can also specify grade scales for individual Programs.

Retake Threshold

The retake threshold defines the grade at which a course can be retaken. If you want, for example, students who get a D or lower to be able to retake a course, but those with a C or higher to keep that grade, you can specify that in this setting.

By default, any course can be retaken.

1. Select the grade scale year for which you wish to define the threshold. If you want to define this for the 2011-2012 grade scale, for instance, you would choose 2011-2012 from the drop-down.
2. Click edit.
3. Select the letter grade from the drop-down: Grades of __ and higher will not be counted as retakes.
4. Choose the next letter grade up from the grade that can be retaken. So, if you want to allow students who get a D to retake that course, then you'd select C.
5. When you're finished, click Save.
6. To delete a threshold, select the grade scale year from the drop-down and click .

Pass/Fail grade scale

Click add to enter a new Pass/Fail grade scale or edit to modify an existing scale.

1. Select an academic year or term.
2. Enter the letter abbreviation (i.e. P for Pass, F for Fail...).
3. Enter minimum points, direct equivalent, and grade points.
4. For failing grades, check the Fail box.
5. When you're finished, click Save.

You can also specify these for individual Programs.

Number of tardies equal to an absence

You can specify how many tardies are counted as a full absence in the calculation of course attendance grades. If you have no such policy, leave this setting blank.

1. Click edit to change the Default. Enter the number of tardies and Save.
2. Click add to create a new tardy policy. Enter the effective-as-of date, the number of tardies, and Save.

Minimum attendance

If your school has a failure for non-attendance policy, you can set that up here. To fully automate this, faculty will have to create an attendance assignment in each of their courses. You can override this at the course or program level.

1. Click edit to change the Default. Enter the minimum attendance percentage (e.g. 75%) and Save.
2. Click add to create a new minimum attendance policy. Enter the effective-as-of date, the minimum attendance, and Save.

Failure for non-attendance abbreviation

Click to change the setting. If a student fails a course by falling below the minimum required attendance, he'll receive this letter grade on his transcript and grade report. If you do not set up a minimum attendance policy, then this grade will not be an option.

Excused Absences

Click to change the setting. If you wish to change how excused absenses are counted towards attendance grades or failure for non-attendance, select the appropriate setting from the drop-down.

Default to Present

By default and for your convenience, Populi pre-selects Present for all students for course attendance events that are currently happening or have already happened. (If you need to change the attendance status, just choose another one.) Select No to disable this default selection; this will make all attendance statuses for all events default to "No Selection". This may come in handy for schools that need a more granular method of recording attendance for different kinds of Student Types.

Default Present until minutes late

Click to change the setting. When using an automated attendance-taking method (beacon or kiosk), students who are more than this many minutes late will be marked Tardy. Faculty can override this when starting the beacon or kiosk.

Default Tardy until minutes late

Click to change the setting. When using an automated attendance-taking method (beacon or kiosk), students who are more than this many minutes late will be marked Absent. Faculty can override this when starting the beacon or kiosk.

Default Transfer Credit Grade Display

Click to change the setting. If you do not enter a grade for a transfer credit, "--" will display wherever that transfer credit appears (transcripts, degree audits, et. al.). If you wish for a different default grade display, enter it in this setting.