IET Collaborates with Campus to Support Electronic Grade Submission Efforts

In collaboration with the Teaching Resources Center (TRC) and the Office of the Registrar, many different IET groups worked together during Fall 2004 to ensure the successful implementation of electronic grade submission for the campus. As a result, the Registrar's office provided grades to students and staff more quickly than in past years, and most found the system easy to use.

In response to the campus mandate for the electronic submission of all grades for Fall 2004, the Middleware team worked with the Data Center to secure a much larger database server for Course Management, one that would provide the robust capacity needed for more than 2,000 faculty or their delegates to successfully submit grades within a two-week timeframe. Additionally, Middleware enhanced the Web server farm for Course Management to ensure greater response time. Web servers for MyUCDavis were also upgraded to the newest version of Cold Fusion, which has proven to be far more stable than previous releases.

Middleware and Mediaworks worked with the Teaching Resources Center and the Office of the Registrar to test and roll out to production several enhancements to the Online Grading application, including changes to simplify the application flow, a change to the built-in notification module, new tabs on the MyUCDavis front page to direct instructors to the Online Grading application, and many textual changes for ease of use. The IET Project Management group also played a significant role, bringing together many IET units, ensuring communication among them and keeping the TRC and the Office of the Registrar up to date on IET's work to support their efforts.

The resulting two-week grading period in December 2004 proved worth the planning and work efforts, as few problems were reported and the network adequately handled the timely submission of all grades. An integrated online survey collected feedback that will be used to improve the system in coming quarters, and IET gro ups will continue to work with TRC, the Registrar's Office, and instructors to make ongoing improvements to Online Grading.