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Student Handbook 2024-25 > Grading and Course Assessment Policy

Grading and Course Assessment Policy

Policy: 

1. Grading and Assessment

1.1 Student Evaluation and Grading System - Undergraduate
The total grade received for a course reflects the student’s classwork and performance in the mid-term and final exams during the semester/term. The following is the grading system followed at UD for undergraduate programs:

Table 1: Undergraduate Grading System

1.2 Grade Point Average – Undergraduate & Graduate
    A. Computation of the semester/term GPA:
SGPA is the average of grade points received in a particular semester/term. To compute it, multiply the credit-hours of the course by the grade points earned by the student in that particular course. The sum is then divided by the total number of registered credit hours. 

Example: 

B. DBS and GUCR will adopt the following weights for assessing courses:
Assessment of courses at all course levels adopt 50%, 20%, & 30% for class-work, midterm and final exams, respectively.

C. LLB Program adopt the following weights for assessing courses: Assessment of courses at all levels includes 40% for assignments (Individual Essay and Group Presentation, 20 marks each) and 60% for the final exam.

 

 

1.4 Student Evaluation & Grading System – Master’s Level Programs

The total grade received for a course reflects the student’s work during the term and performance in the classwork and final exams. Each MBA/M.Sc course is assessed by a combination of  classwork (assignments, group work, projects, simulations, etc.), and one final examination. Classwork constitutes 60% of the course grade and the final examination at the end constitutes 40% of the course grade. For the LLM course, the assessment of courses at all levels includes 60% for assignments (Individual Essay and Group Presentation, 30 marks each) and 40% for the final exam. The thesis course is assessed based on a rubric out of 100%, excluding it from the aforementioned distribution. The Graduate Grading system followed at UD is detailed in Table 2. 

Table 2: Master’s Grading System

For the PhD program refer to EP3.16 Academic Regulations of the PhD program for information on the grading system.

2. Guidelines For Faculty on Preparing Course Assignments and Examinations.
Following are a few guidelines) for faculty to prepare assignments and examinations and the expectations of students on these assessment instruments.

2.1 Information About Assignments and Exams

1. Information about the material for which students are responsible and the format of questions they can expect should be made available to students well in advance. Instructors may also inform students whether they will have any choice about which questions to answer, and how many questions there will be.

2. Students must also be informed beforehand about the format of an exam; its length; how much it is worth in terms of the final course grade; and how much of the course contents will be tested in a specific assessment instrument.

3. In accordance with the requirement that evaluative methods be "as equitable as possible," if the course has more than one section, similar assessment instruments must be given to each section. In particular, midterm and final exams have to be identical.

4. It is the responsibility of a student who misses a class to find out what was missed, however, instructors are encouraged to repeat announcements of important information or by including it in written materials like the course outline. 

5. Assessment instruments should reflect material taught in class, including notes, textbooks and other assigned readings, labs, or tutorials. Additionally, students are expected to use and rely on skills which they have been taught or practiced in the course, such as writing, critical thinking and problem solving. Assessment instruments must not include material from unexpected sources, such as a course at a previous level or a skill which was not practiced or taught.

6. Different assessment tools must address the Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) defined and approved in the course syllabus. Final exams must be comprehensive covering all the CLOs taught during the semester.

7. Exam questions must be updated regularly. Exam questions must not be repeated for six (6) future offerings. Exam questions on the same concepts must be rephrased and numbers in quantitative questions changed from previous versions.

 

2.2 Marking

1. Where possible, faculty must give some credit to partial solutions to distinguish those who have mastered the methodology but made minor errors from students who have no idea how to solve a problem, and therefore deserve a zero on a specific question.  

2. Instructors must follow a fair marking scheme that focuses on the course material; that is one which awards a majority of the marks for knowledge of the course material. If there are penalties for spelling and grammar mistakes, they should be reasonable.

3. Rubrics must be provided for each assessment with written feedback to the students.

 

2.3 Level of Difficulty

1. Exams must reflect the knowledge, skills and competency level as per the course QFE.

2. The questions on the examination paper must be varied and diverse in order to assess the student’s cognitive abilities in understanding, applying, analyzing, synthesis and evaluation.

3. It is also expected that exams in higher level courses must reflect higher analytical skills and depth of comprehension than that in lower level courses.

 

2.4 Duration

1. The questions shall be long enough to cover the entire period allocated to the exams, e.g., one hour and twenty minutes (1 hour 20 minutes) for mid-term exam and two (2) hours for final exam. The same concept applies to post graduate courses.

2. If an assessment is intended to be long, students are normally fore-warned when and why this is so.

2.5 Undergraduate Format

1. UD  permits assignments/exams to take many different formats - open book, essay, short answer, multiple choice,  oral presentations etc.. since human beings differ in how they learn. 

2. Since students also differ in how they perform in different kinds of assessment situations, faculty members are urged to use a variety of assignment/exam formats or evaluative approaches in a course, so that different styles of learning are encouraged.

3. Instructors are asked to provide an advanced knowledge of the type(s) of questions on an assignment/exam, so that students are forewarned and can study appropriately.

4. Assessment in higher level courses (300 & 400) must be analytical in nature (e.g. must not have multiple choice questions).

5. Lower level courses (100 & 200) must not have more than 35% of multiple choice questions.

2.6 High Failure Rate

1. If the instructor unexpectedly faces a high number of failures after an assessment, the results may not be an accurate indication of what students have learned and fair distribution of marks should be considered. 

2. Faculty members are asked to wait until all the other grades in the course have been determined, rather than make adjustments midstream. 

3. Make-ups may be used if needed with the approval of the Dean.

2.7 Consistency

A. To ensure grading consistency among various groups of students, departments (or faculties where applicable) shall take appropriate action to ensure that courses with multiple sections             have:

• Equivalent course and assessment requirements (e.g. CLO’s, quizzes, etc.)

• Similar learning outcomes

• Similar assessment levels 

• Similar grading procedures (e.g. rubric, etc)

  B. Multiple sections must have similar exams, which are typically scheduled at the same time. Classwork activities may vary.

2.8 Departmental Responsibility 

1. Exam moderation involves the moderation of exams to ensure exam validity, appropriateness and the observation of repetition limits from various semesters. Moderation procedures are outlined inEP 3.8 Examinations Policy. 

2. Grading is the responsibility of departments, which delegate that responsibility to instructors.

3. Department heads must ensure that courses normally fit the grading pattern of other courses in a discipline. The deviation by an individual instructor must be carefully evaluated for fairness. An instructor may be asked to explain anomalies: why there are no grades below or above a certain level, why the failure rate is so high or so low, and so on.

4. Before a set of grades is accepted and posted, it must be approved by both the (ad-hoc) EOAC at the College level and the Dean.

5. The EOAC can discuss issues of concern with the Instructor. If the issues are not resolved, the committee shall raise such cases to the Dean, without endorsing the results. The Dean may endorse the results, suggest a certain action to the instructor, or appoint a committee for work re-evaluation. 

2.9 Subjectivity

1. Faculty members offering essay questions must ensure that a clear rubric is prepared to avoid inconsistent or unfair grading of such “subjective” questions.

2. Departments (or faculties) shall ensure that final grades in their courses are derived largely from documented evidence demonstrating academic achievement, i.e., written or practical examinations, essays, reports, problem assignments.  

3. The judgment and discretion of the instructor are key factors in evaluating the work of students appropriately.

2.10 Access to Assignments/Examinations

1. Faculty members must provide feedback on the work of students.

2. The UD policy requires that instructors will return assignments to students as promptly as possible with reasonable explanations of the instructor's assessment of the assignment.

3. Students have a right to review their final exams up to 2 weeks from the beginning of the following semester.

2.11 Academic Integrity

1. Students have a responsibility not to cheat. Cheating is against UD’s code of Conduct, with details mentioned in the Student Handbook. Students need to be aware that cheating is not tolerated and is subject to harsh penalties. Refer to policy S 6.18, Student Academic Integrity,  for further information.

2. The instructor and the University have a responsibility to organize assignments/ examinations in a way which makes cheating difficult. 

3. Should the instructor suspect or notice any form of cheating, the student shall be subject to the appropriate action as per policy S 6.18 Student Academic Integrity.

4. Faculty members may follow some of the following measures in their assignments/exams and courses: 

• Use different versions of the assignments/exams (for example, same questions, different order and numbering) may be used randomly or row by row;

• Exam rooms may be set up so that different courses write in alternate rows;

• Instructors may photocopy a student paper before giving it back; a student who modifies an answer and resubmits an exam in hopes of earning extra marks will be accused of cheating and be subject to penalties;

• Students suspected of cheating previously in the course (on an assignment or lab report, for example) may be watched more closely by proctors; 

• Turnitin program (or similar programs) may be used to identify student assessment papers with similar answer patterns; this evidence may be used to support an allegation of cheating/plagiarism.

The list above is not conclusive. Faculty must constantly devise new systems to deter cheating.

2.12 Makeup Exams 

1. Makeup exams are scheduled for eligible students in the academic calendar. 

2. The makeup exams should not be the same as the regular/original ones, but faculty members should make sure that “evaluative methods are academically rigorous and as equitable as possible”, i.e. that the makeup exam should be comparable in rigor to the regular exam.

3. The format of the two exams may not be the same, but both should cover the same course material and be of similar difficulty. 

4. Makeup exams must go through the same scrutiny and regulations as regular exams.

5. A student who believes a makeup exam is not comparable to the regular exam it replaced may appeal on those grounds. Grades appeal follows the same procedures as that of a regular exam.

6. Details on makeup logistics are found in Policy EP 3.8 Examination Policy.

2.13 Lost Assignments/Exams

1. If assignments/exams get lost despite the safeguards and procedures followed by instructors and departments, the student may be asked to write another assignment/exam. 

2. The replacement assignment/exam must be comparable to the original assignment/exam, and the student may appeal an assignment/exam believed to be not comparable, in the same way as any other student writing a special exam.

2.14 Disruptions During an Exam (see EP 3.8 Examination policy)

1. If students were subjected to unforeseen and serious disruptions while writing exams, the instructor can look at the set of grades and make a judgment about whether that grade set reflects the disruption, and adjust the grade if appropriate. 

2.15 Illness

1. An ill or incapacitated student who chooses to write the exam must be prepared to accept the result. Notwithstanding the fact that the student could not foresee the impact of the illness or other problem on his performance. An appeal after the fact is unlikely to succeed.

2. UD has policies (EP 3.8 Examination Policy) which have clauses that govern and regulate exam absences. 

2.16 Academic Accommodations

1. SOD may receive accommodations for examinations. Please refer to each individual’s accommodation plan for specific accommodations granted. Disability must be disclosed to UD and a formal plan put in place prior to examination. (Refer to S 6.23 for more information)

2. Cases where students with temporary problems, either compassionate or health related, request an exam deferral because the problem has prevented them from studying, follow the regulations stipulated in EP 3.8 Examination Policy. 

 

3.Summary
In summary, faculty members of the University of Dubai are expected to:

1. Develop meaningful assignments that contribute to student mastery of course and program competencies.

2. Make expectations and criteria for assessment clear to students.

3. Write assignments and exams that fairly reflect the course content and coverage.

4. Provide appropriate and timely feedback for all assignments (within maximum 1 week in a semester /term or 3 days in a short term) and exams (within 48 hours in all cases). Due to the number of students in a course and the nature of the activity, the time frame for returning graded material may vary from the suggested norms. The faculty member should inform students of the expected return date.

5. Communicate clearly the factors that will go into the calculation of the final grade.

6. Provide students with a reasonable opportunity to discuss assignments and grades without reprisal.

7. Assign final grades with fairness.

8. Set and enforce standards for academic integrity such that students who behave with honesty are not disadvantaged.