Faculty must use their Trent email account for all email communication with the Office of the Registrar (RO), including requests for manual registration. This is the only way an instructor’s identity can be confirmed and the students’ privacy is safeguarded.
Student Grades
Grade Entry
All grade entry must be done through myTrent. Blackboard does not download data into Colleague (Student Information System) and any grades entered will not be considered official. You are welcome to post individual assignment grades to Blackboard throughout the term, but are reminded that “instructors and/or departments are not permitted to release final grades” (Academic Calendar, Official Final Grades).
University policy requires that instructors submit final and mid-year grades within 10 calendar days after the exam is written, take-home exam is submitted, or by the last day of exams if no exam is scheduled. The RO sets a final grade deadline each term and circulates that deadline widely. Timely submission of grades assists the RO with finalizing eligible graduates for convocation.
For questions about using the grade entry system, contact records@trentu.ca.
Grade Release
Grades will be released to students as they are verified by department Chairs. Final grades will become official 30 days after they have been released by the RO and academic departments may raise or lower grades during this 30-day timeframe.
Mid-year grades are provided to assist students in assessing their performance in full-year courses. They are not official, do not show up on the student’s transcript and do not require Chair verification. The same due dates are associated with mid-year and Fall final grades. Once the grading system is closed, you will not be allowed to submit your mid-year grades. The RO uses these mid-year grades to complete the mid-year review, which helps to identify students at risk and put them in touch with people who can help them.
Grade Administration
Department administration can access IRIS, which generates reports from Colleague. You can access IRIS by logging into myTrent, under Tools > Reporting > Academic Departments. To see a list of grades, use Report 111 Class List by Course Section for Printing and make sure the Show Grades field is set to Yes.
Normally, at least 25% of the grade in a course must be determined and made available by the Final Date for Withdrawal (Academic Calendar, Grading Criteria). This gives students enough information to make a decision on whether or not they will be successful.
It is important that every student who did not submit Incomplete Standing paperwork be assigned a grade. Please assign the student the grade they earned in the course, no matter how low it is. Students who have indicated they will be petitioning for Late Withdrawal should still be assigned a grade; if the petition is approved, the grade will be removed from the record.
Nothing to Evaluate (NTE) should be assigned for students who never attended class and did not submit any work. Please use this notation for a student who never attended class. Any student who has submitted any kind of work or earned any attendance should be assigned that grade, even if it is 1%.
Changing a Grade
Before grades have been verified by your Chair, you should be able to make changes through the grades entry system. After grades have been verified, you will need to let your department know. Grades are not considered official until 30 days after they have been released by the RO. Because there are so many changes being made, the RO accepts email notification of required changes as long as the department Chair has explicitly approved them.
Grade Appeals
Grade appeals are submitted by the student to the RO with a $25 processing fee. Once this fee is processed, the grade appeal is sent to the department. The department makes a decision and notifies the RO. The RO then notifies the student of the decision. A successful grade appeal results in the refunding of the $25 fee.
Student with Extenuating Circumstances
Incomplete Standing
Incomplete Standing is to be used for students who, for a compelling reason, are not able to complete their work during the term. The instructor sets the final date for the student to submit outstanding work, which is at the instructor’s discretion, up to the final date allowed for incomplete specified in the Academic Calendar. When the work is received, the department will submit a Change of Grade form to the RO and the student’s record will be updated.
An Incomplete Standing form must be obtained from the department, signed by the student, the instructor and the Chair, and then submitted to the RO before the deadline for grade release. The RO houses the supply of Incomplete Standing and Change of Grade forms. Please email registrar@trentu.ca to request more forms be sent to you. If an Incomplete Standing form has been submitted to the RO, please leave the student’s grade blank when entering grades in myTrent.
There is no option to extend the deadline on an incomplete. The original deadline is entered into the system when the paperwork is received and the grade will be applied to the student’s record once the deadline has passed, if we have not received a Change of Grade form. However, there is no deadline to submit the Change of Grade form. So while the original low grade may show on the student’s record for a while, it can be changed once the work is complete.
Aegrotat Standing
In unusual circumstances, a student may be exempt from writing a final exam. This decision is at the instructor’s discretion. The instructor has the right to request documentation from the student. The RO must receive notice of Aegrotat Standing for a student from the department Chair. The RO will add a notation of AG next to the assigned grade on the student’s transcript once notification from the Chair is received. Enter an aegrotat grade the same way as a regular grade when submitting grades in myTrent.
Instructors are encouraged to accommodate students if provided a good reason. It is also possible to give Incomplete and Aegrotat Standings to students who have difficult personal situations affecting their academics. Instructors are asked not to suggest a Late Withdrawal petition to students, but rather to refer them to an Academic Advisor for more information. A Late Withdrawal petition is often not the best solution for students who miss one assignment, or who are unable to write an exam.
Course Registration
Manual Registration
Manual registrations are required for students who wish to be registered in a closed or full course, or where there is a scheduling conflict with another course. The department or instructor must grant permission for the student to be registered. Please be aware that students who are manually registered are bypassing waitlists unless the RO is told to waitlist the student. When submitting a manual registration request, you must provide the following:
- The student’s original email requesting the registration.
- The faculty member, Chair or academic administrative assistant granting express permission to register the student. It is also possible to request that the student be placed on the waitlist.
- The full course code, section number and location (e.g. ERSC 1000Y-A-Y04 PTBO).
If you do not provide one of these pieces of information, we will reply to request the information. We cannot choose the section for you, or for the student. Additionally, we need the section number (e.g. F01, W02, Y03, etc.) and not the time the section meets (e.g. Monday at 3:30).
Prerequisite Roster
A prerequisite roster is a process to check for students who have not met their prerequisite requirements. It is important to run prerequisite checks after each grades entry period to catch any students who did not meet their prerequisite requirements. It often happens that students do not pass a prerequisite course in the Fall term that was required to take the continuation course in the Winter term. Make sure to run a roster for each course in your department.
Academic administrative assistants run prerequisite rosters to check for students who did not meet the prerequisite requirements in the preceding term. It’s important that they can run these early enough to request that the students are unregistered before the start of the next term. Getting this done on time gives the students enough time to register in a different course. It also prevents them from being charged late registration fees.
Colleague has a check that you can run. Please use the mnemonic XRQMM to determine which students have valid overrides and should remain in a course without the prerequisites, which applies to exchange students and students with waivers. Email registration@trentu.ca with a list of students you want unregistered from each course. Please note that it is the responsibility of the department offering the course to notify students who are being unregistered because of missing prerequisites.
Student Not Registered
A student who does not have access to Blackboard is most likely not registered in the course. Faculty cannot request Blackboard access for a student who is not registered. Once the student becomes registered, they will have access to Blackboard. You can run IRIS Report 111 Class List by Course Section for Printing to generate a report showing all students registered in a specific course section. If a student is not registered in the course, there is no obligation for faculty to grade the student’s work. In fact, it is better not to grade work, as there is no guarantee that the student will ever be successfully registered in the class and graded work does not make it more likely that they will be allowed to register, particularly after the deadline to add courses has passed.
Course Section Switch
At the end of the Fall term, many students wish to switch sections of their full-year courses to avoid conflicts with Winter course selections. This is fine, but it is very important that we document section switches by making the appropriate registration change. This is crucial for scheduling purposes, but also from a risk management standpoint. We request that faculty send an email to registration@trentu.ca requesting the section switch, including the original request from the student. Please give the old section number and the desired section number (e.g. Y01, Y05) rather than the time the section meets. We will drop the student from the old section and register them in the new section. Do not have the student drop the course themselves as this may result in issues with billing.
If you have any concerns about the change of a course section in Blackboard, please contact it@trentu.ca.