Results
Uphold grading integrity
Grade Matter helped to uphold Bond’s grading integrity by ensuring that there was fairness in course instructors’ marking, assisted by Grade Matter’s ability to require a justification be submitted when certain grades are changed. This feature also allowed for the ability to audit grade changes. Should a grade review request come through (whether from a student, member of the Faculty Assessment Board, or any other grade reviewer), Grade Matter had recorded every grade change and accompanying comment to provide accurate evidence to support the grade.
Improved grade submission and approval productivity
For the course instructors, Grade Matter also drastically improved their productivity by allowing for continuous delivery of grades into the application. Rather than having to manually calculate all their students’ grades in a spreadsheet at the end of the trimester, instructors could simply import the assessment marks from Blackboard Ultra into Grade Matter and the application automatically calculated the final results for them.
Reduced risk of errors
On top of these benefits, Grade Matter offered Bond University greater assurance that the risk of error was reduced, and that grade moderation has been effectively managed and carried out.
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- Dr Daniel Brennan, Assistant Professor in the Transformation CoLab at Bond University:
“The tricky administration around submitting final grades has always been stressful. The process of transferring data from one source to another, analysing the grades, and submitting it for final approval leaves many gaps for errors.
“Consequently, it’s a very time-consuming process to ensure that each student gets the right grades; I teach courses with large enrolments, and the traditional grading system took around two and a half to five hours to prepare.
“With the Grade Matter program, that time has been reduced from 2.5 hours to 15 minutes, and all of the stress and triple-checking for errors has disappeared.
“Grade Matter allows me to instantly begin analysing the grade data and checking over students sitting on borderline or questionable grades. I’m especially grateful for the insightful presentation of grade data that makes it so clear how students have performed. In Board of Examiners meetings, the program really shines as it allows the committee to investigate the grades with intuitive display options.
“Grades submission used to be a burden on my time and a stress-inducing procedure. Now, with Grade Matter, the process is automatic and enables me to focus on student welfare rather than data entry.”