/Institutions/United-States-University/json/2023-2024/Faculty-Handbook-local.json

/Institutions/United-States-University/json/2023-2024/Faculty-Handbook.json

5-3 USU Online Classroom Policies and Processes

5.3 a Class Roster and Attendance Requirements
Class attendance is of vital importance, and excessive absences will affect the student’s final grade. For online courses at USU, accurate attendance reporting is through substantive engagement and interaction in the course platform.
The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Student Financial Assistance, requires that educational institutions receive federal financial aid funds to verify students' attendance. If the student receiving these funds is not attending classes, the funds must be returned to the Department of Education within 30 days of the semester's start.
For the University to comply with this requirement, student participation in course activities is essential as this will create data points for such attendance. Faculty members are expected to monitor their students for adequate participation in the online platform to record accurate attendance. Each faculty member must support the syllabus and attendance and participation policies of the university. 
● For online courses, student attendance is tracked and reported automatically.
● For on-ground courses or class sessions, faculty members must maintain student attendance records and submit those records to the Registrar's Office on the schedule set forth for grades in the grade submission policy.
In addition to meeting the Department of Education requirements, attendance data will allow the Financial Aid Office to accurately adjust financial aid awards and provide sound census data for required IPEDS reporting. It will also lessen the need for petitions for late drops and student persistence in their degree programs.
Note 1: The purpose of this requirement is to identify those students who never attended class and to protect the financial aid funding system for our students. Attendance and participation monitoring are essential during the first week of the course.
Note 2: If a student never attended any of the class sessions, please notify the student advisor and your Program Lead.
Note 3: Attendance and participation monitoring needs to be done for all classes, including independent study, internships, and reading and conference classes. For these classes, meeting during the first two weeks of course with the student(s) or communication with the student(s) such as an email should be reported to the Registrar for accurate recording.
Add/Drop Policy
Students may add a course before the session and throughout the first week of a session. Students will not be added to the second week of a session without approval from the Dean. Students may drop courses before the first day of the session or up to the end of the second week by notifying their academic advisor. For the full add/drop policy, see the USU General Catalog. Add link 
5.3b Grading
United States University grading standards are published in the current Catalog and course syllabi. Each instructor should become familiar with the grading standards.
Weekly Grading
Faculty are expected to post grades within 96 hours of an assignment deadline. Faculty are expected to provide detailed and specific feedback to grow in both writing and understanding content. The faculty uses rubrics based on clearly defined criteria to support scoring and grading consistently.
At-Risk Students (Early Alert)
Faculty should contact student advising with any students who are not actively participating in general or need assistance. The Advisor should be the faculty’s first point of contact. Use Complete and submit the Early Alert Form located in the Instructor-Only Resources tab to initiate contact with the student. Link to the Early Alert Form 
Final Grade Publishing and Deadlines
Faculty should publish their final grades in the learning management system, automatically reporting the registrar’s office grades. Failure to publish final grades by Friday, 9:00 AM Pacific Time (PT) after the session's close will delay the term's final paycheck. Most importantly, students expect timely feedback on their performance and course assessments throughout the session, including final grades.
Incomplete Grades  Can we link to the catalog and remove
An Incomplete (I) grade is assigned when a student is unable to complete the
requirements of a course due to extenuating circumstances beyond the student’s control, such as illness, hospitalization, death, or care of a family member. A student may request an Incomplete grade if, at a minimum, 60% of a course is completed and in good standing.
The student must initiate the request for an Incomplete to the faculty before the course's last day. Faculty may require the student to provide documentation of the extenuating circumstance. If the faculty approves the request for the Incomplete, a student may be given a maximum of four (4) weeks from the end of the course to meet the criteria outlined by the faculty for an Incomplete. It is the discretion of the faculty to give a shorter deadline.
The faculty will send the approval to the Office of the Registrar for processing. It is the responsibility of the student to follow up with the faculty to remove an Incomplete. Failure to resolve the Incomplete by the deadline given will result in the grade defaulting to an “F” or “NC” based on the course's grading criteria.
A grade of Incomplete is not considered a grade and may not satisfy any subsequent courses' prerequisite requirement.
For the complete Incomplete policy, see the USU Procedures here. 
Changing a Grade
Please take the utmost care and exercise due deliberation in assigning grades. Once grades are published in the online course grade book, they are final and irrevocable except in cases of demonstrable error or inconsistency in the application of grading criteria. Examples of what the University considers a clerical error are:
● An error of calculation such as when adding the points earned on different exams
● An error in computing the percentage of points earned by a student
● A typing error entering the percentage grade in the grade book
Furthermore, additional work may NOT be assigned to enable the student to receive a higher grade.
The Dean does reserve the right to review all grade-change requests. Failure to publish final grades may affect a teacher’s pay increases, an employee’s tuition reimbursement, or a student’s financial aid. Use the Grade Change form in the Instructor-Only Resources tab to initiate the process.
Challenging a Grade
As experts in their fields, faculty have the final authority in assigning student grades except for cases involving clear evidence of capricious grading or failure to follow the discipline's professional standards.
Faculty members may change final grades after submission to the Registrar’s Office only for clerical types of error cited above. Furthermore, additional work may not be assigned to enable the student to receive a higher grade. However, a student who believes he or she has received a grade based on an inconsistent application of grading criteria may appeal personally to the instructor to explain the grade and possible reconsideration. A grade challenge must be submitted to the instructor within 7 days after the student receives the official final grade notice. As a professional scholar and educator, the instructor should explain the grading criteria, how the criteria meet the discipline standards, and how the individual student's grade derives from these criteria. The instructor shall issue a formal response to the grade challenge within 5 days of receipt, with a copy sent to the Dean.
If, after consulting with the instructor, the grade dispute is not resolved or if the student has made a good faith effort to contact the instructor and has received no response, the student may appeal directly to the Dean of the academic unit in which the course was offered.
For more information on final course grade challenges and assignment grade appeals, please see the USU General Catalog.
5.3c Faculty Absence and/or Class Cancellation
In the event an instructor must miss class due to illness or some other extenuating circumstance, the appropriate Dean and/or Program Director AND Academic Administrative Staff must be notified in advance. No instructor substitution may occur without the Dean of the respective school/college's express prior permission. The integrity of the instructional process is of prime concern, and options for maintaining it MUST be observed. The instructor may make no unilateral instructor or class substitutions or cancellations. Any agreed-upon departure from the published class schedule MUST be approved.
Except in the case of a sudden emergency or illness, classes should never be canceled. If such an event should occur, an immediate attempt to contact the Program Chair or Dean must be made. If circumstances are identified ahead of time necessitating a class to be missed, the Program Chair or Dean must be notified, and the absence must be approved before it occurs. It is usually the responsibility of the absentee faculty member to arrange for attendance to be taken, material to be assigned, a test to be given by a substitute faculty member.
5.3f Course-Related Forms
Most course-related forms are available in your Instructor-Only Resources tab, including but not limited to:
• Early Alert Form
• Grade Change Form