Early Alert Grades Request

In an effort to improve retention, USD would like to implement an "early alert" program. The goal would be to identify students who are struggling academically early in the semester while there is adequate time for intervention. To accomplish this we will be asking our faculty teaching 100 and 200 level courses to identify students in trouble by the 4th week of the semester. In order to record, track, and report these students we would like to have faculty enter the deficiencies in Web Advisor, in a fashion similar to mid-term deficiencies. We'll still be doing the traditional midterm deficiencies too. I'd like to know if we can use Web Advisor for this, and determine the best way to accomplish this.

Clarification Ranny received from Dr. Turchen (09/01/04):

The "early alert" grades are a specific university program and are different from Mid Term Deficiency. I don't think that all universities should be required to add "early alert" grading, but any university that wants to do so should be able to do so.

Procedures

  1. On the WebAdvisor mid-term grading screen, Field #1 will be used for mid-term grades and Field #6 will be used for early alert grades.
  2. “DEF” is the grade that will be used to report Early Alert Grades.
  3. The new grading enhancement will restrict all mid-term grading fields to a grade of “DEF”.
  4. Free form text on the WA mid-term grading screen will assist with Early Alert Grading:
  5. All universities will display the following message: “Midterm grades should only be entered in column “GR1”. The only valid mid-term grade is “DEF”.
  6. USD will display the following message at the time of Early Alert Grading: “Early Alert Grades should be entered ONLY in column “GR6”. The only valid grade is “DEF” and should be used ONLY for those students who are at risk. Other students should not be graded at this time. A last date of attendance is not required.
  7. The WA Mid Term Grading parameter screen permits us to specify the number of mid term grading fields that can be seen by the faculty (either one field, or all fields).
  8. The first six weeks of the term, all six columns will display on WA.
  9. Two weeks prior to mid-term and for the remainder of the term, the view will be limited to one column (GR1).
  10. At the beginning of the next term, the view will be changed to 6 columns again.
  11. Don Ticknor (USD) will edit the entry of Early Alert Grades by USD each semester to ensure that none of the Early Alert grades have been entered in the first column that is reserved for Mid-term grades. This edit should be completed two weeks prior to mid-term grading.