Soon, professors will be able to access the instructor grading pattern dashboard, which allows professors to view the grade distributions from their past classes as well as from all classes, departments and other professors.
This resource, if kept available only to professors, will help give better context to the discourse on grade inflation and lead to fewer aberrations in grade distributions.
Although this program will likely not have an immediate impact on professors’ grading choices, the greater access to information it offers will allow professors to make better, more informed decisions.
Access to this information should cause professors to create more uniform grade distributions among students who take the same courses with different professors.
This information, though, should be kept in the hands of professors and school administrators, and shouldn’t be freely accessible to students. The tool exists so professors can make better decisions, not so that students can get easier A’s.
The use of this program is a part of the larger discussion on grade inflation that includes the implementation of contextual transcripts starting in fall 2013, which are meant to measure the difficulty of a student’s course history.
Grade inflation is a national issue, and any action taken by the University needs to be careful not to put our students at a disadvantage in its attempt to combat this issue.
Providing professors with more information won’t weaken students’ transcripts, but will help fight grade inflation in the longer term.
