Hi guys,

A friend of mine is taking an online course with UofT, and the instructor...well...f rankly, he doesn't know how to grade.

What I mean by this is, my friend has submitted an assignment. The instructor has provided feedback, and assigned a rubric grade, mostly 2's with some 3's (ie. 'average' with a few 'goods')

Correct me if I'm wrong: Traditionally, a rubric operates on a scale of 0 to 4:

Less than 50% -> 0 (or "Unsatisfactory")
50-60% -> 1 (or "Poor")
60-70% -> 2 (or "Average")
70-80% -> 3 (or "Good")
80-100% -> 4 (or "Excellent")


Now...the problem is, my friend has received four 2's and two 3's...so presumably, she should get an 'average' grade right? It's my impression (correct me if I'm wrong) that she should get a high '2' grade, so something around 70%?

However, what the professor did was take these as mathematical grades...so he took each 2 as a 2/4, and each 3 as a 3/4, summed them up and got 14/24, which is about 58%...then scaled it to a mark out of 15 (which is 8.75/15) and rounded down to 8/15. (My friend emailed him, and this is straight from his mouth)

Now, 8/15 is about 53%...which according to a rubric, is a low "1" or Unsatisfactory...to make matters worse, a passing grade in the course is a C-, so my friend technically received a failing grade.



So, I have two questions:

1) Something's not right here...right? I mean, you can't combine rubric grades (which aren't mathematical) into mathematical grades...because otherwise, an "Average" or 2/4 is 50%.

(Mathematically, this means a rubric is scaled from 50% to 100%, instead of 0% to 100%, which happens when you sum all of the grades. In other words, the only people who got 'accurate' grades, are the people who got consistent 4's (which I believe was nobody in the course))

2) Does anyone have any ideas or advice? Should she appeal this grade to say, their OMBUDS office? (She's already tried correspondence with the professor (who seems to ignore her attempts at explaining why it's not a well-defined way to determine the final grade), and other students who are also upset with their grades).


Thanks for taking the time out to read/respond!

Yes, you and your friend are right. This prof is a moron.

If this happened at Mac it would be equating a grade of C+ (so a 6) into a 6/12...which would then turn into a D-, or a 1. Which...makes no sense.

I would suggest for them to go to their OMBUDS office, and to bring copies of all communications they have had with the prof, as well as the marking rubric and the assignment. Their Ombudsperson can then direct them for the next stage in the process. However, it should be noted that the student may not be appeal for a different grade until the course is completed..

Quick answer:

U of T is pretty notorious about their hard-grading 'policies'. If you have any friends who go to U of T, no doubt they have complained about how hard they have it over there.

I don't think appealing the mark will do anything; I'm sure plenty of people have before, and in fact, most times when you go and ask for a re-grade or something to that extent, the prof will nail you with an even lower mark (I know people who have had this happen to them at U of T).

My advice is to tell your friend to just live with it and maybe ask the prof for some feedback in order to do better on the next assignment.

P.S. Most profs at U of T have Tenure as well, so it's not like people can tell them what to do.

I guess I'll tell them to try anyway...wouldn't hurt right?

It seems that the demand that in order to simply 'pass' the course, you need 'good' evaluations (3/4's across the board), is a bit unreasonable...not to mention that as I pointed out, it's mathematically ill-defined.

I dunno, if it's true and I haven't inferred something incorrectly about rubric use, doesn't it seem as though it's a pretty solid case? He's doing it wrong...


(Not to mention, I just looked at a piece of correspondence, and he doesn't seem to understand that a grade of 8/15 is a failing mark, given that C- (9 or 10/15) is the minimum passing grade)

She's also said that out of her class of about 12 students, she's heard back from 8, all of whom have 8/15 or less (ie. they're failing). The instructor doesn't see an issue with his grading, because he doesn't understand that 8/15 is a failing grade...

Oh boy...a PhD does not equal "smarts" , as my dad always said.

wow that's just ridiculous...

appealing it would definitely be a good start...

weird, he should've done 14/6 (for the number of questions on the assignment or whatever)