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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Grading in Banner Survival Tip #1


It’s December and we all know what that means…..Fall Grading!!

It’s very exciting for me to be able to write a series of grading articles that do not go over the same tired ‘rules’ again—no stapling, erasing completely, watch your plus and minus circles, don’t fold or mutilate your grade rosters, etc. You won’t be surprised to learn that things are different in Banner. Therefore, everything I have to nag you about will be NEW!

Grading in Banner is much simpler than it was in SIS. Those of you who were already grading on-line in SIS can attest to the fact that it is a pretty painless process and much less messy than filling in circles and trying to erase and hope the scanner doesn’t pick up the wrong grade. In Banner there are no cycle numbers so that makes the on-line grading even easier than it was before.

The biggest change you’ll experience this month is that you won’t have to wait for the arrival of your frequently out of alignment grade rosters. This means you can start grading whenever you are ready. You’ll no longer need to mail or tote the crooked grade rosters around or try to sneak them under the door. Even if you received a new coat, boots AND a car for Christmas, it still wasn’t fun to go out in the cold to schlep your grade roster around. Needless to say, those of us working in R&R weren’t that excited about all the papers either. And rosters used to do odd and mysterious things as they attempted to make their way from Damon to Brighton. Now the Damon grades will be available without any delays.

There will be no lag time between when you grade someone and when the grades are available to the student. R&R doesn’t have to handle the grade roster and then send it to Operations to scan and load into the system before the grades are on the student’s record. Grades will roll to academic history and GPAs will be recalculated every 20 minutes.

Fall attendance collection was the perfect training ground for grading. You will input your grades on the same form you input your attendance. If, for some reason that I definitely do not want to know about, you did not submit your fall attendance information, please be sure to access your class list through self service prior to the grading deadline so you know how to do it. If you don’t know how to grade in Banner there are a few things you can do prior to the grading deadline of December 26.

Contact your Banner “angel” (season appropriate!) for assistance in accessing your class list/grade roster in self service.

Access the on-line documentation and training video:

MCC Home Page

Employees

MCC Banner Project (left column under the gold stripe)

Student System

Web Based

Log in. Documentation and Training Video are both available here. Check them out.

Ask a colleague who DID submit their attendance information and knows how to access and use the form. You WILL have to admit to them that you didn’t do your attendance though or you can claim temporary amnesia…I have found that to be very helpful time and time again and no one ever seems to catch on!

In the next article we will talk about the coming of Banner 7.3 and how it will affect Fall grading. Your homework assignment between articles is to log into self service and access your final grade form so you won’t run into trouble at the last minute when you want to get your grades in before you go snow boarding.

Deborah Benjamin
Registration and Records
12/04/2006