Assignment Follow-Up

The items and information within this page outline the process for receiving clarification or regrade requests.

24/7 Rule

24 Hours

24 hours after grades have been posted is identified as the “review” period. This allows the students to take the time to conduct an in-depth review of the grader feedback, own work, and devise a well-curated/structured request that follows the guidelines on this page. Review the “Student Regrade Request Curation” and “Grader-Score Judgement” sections of this page for more details.

Any requests made during the initial 24-hours will be denied and the student will be required to submit the form again inside the active window.

 7 Days

The regrade request window is 7 days (11:59 PM AOE) from the day the grade was released. Regrade requests made after this window will be denied. Once the student has made a well-detailed and properly formulated request outlined in the “Request Comments” section, the 7-day window stops (to includes appeals).

Assignment Follow-Up Form

The Assignment Follow-Up Form is the only approved and accepted method of requesting assignment follow-ups (regrades or clarifications). Creating a Piazza post, responding to the feedback in Canvas, or sending a Canvas message about an assignment follow-up will not be reviewed.

Form Completion Notification

When completing the form, there will be an option to “Send me an email receipt of my responses” on the last page. Choosing this option will generate an email to the student’s Georgia Tech email allowing the student to review the form responses. Choosing this option will allow students to further check to ensure their form information was correct.

Follow-Up Validation

The form requires students to enter both their GT account username and GT ID. Utilizing two forms of validation greatly decreases the amount of incorrectly entered student identification, decreasing the number of requests the course staff cannot tie to a specific student for further evaluation and processing.

When reviewing the form responses after submission, if it is found that one of the two identification metrics was incorrect do not resubmit a new request. The system is capable of identifying the student off just one metric. Only resubmit if it is found that both metrics were entered incorrectly.

Clarification Requests

While reviewing the feedback or deductions for an assignment there may be instances that the student would like further clarification. The clarification Request selection is there to ask questions and receive further information. Submitting a Clarification Request does not invoke a Regrade Request (unless during the request processing identifies an error in grading which will be handled without further necessary action) nor does it invoke any of the items of the Regrade Request.

Regrade Requests

The regrade request process’s intent is to correct identifiable errors in grading. The process is not to dispute subjective grader judgment on point allocations.

Student Regrade Request Curation

When curating a regrade request-response, there are a few items that are necessary to have a well-detailed and properly formulated response.

1. Student must identify the aspect of the assignment in question
2. Student must identify the piece of feedback in question
3. Student must fully articulate how and why they meet the rubric items
4. Student must provide concrete evidence from their assignment submission that the rubric item is met.

Comments such as “I answered X in my report”, “I did do X”, etc. with no context to the student actually fulfilling the requirement will not be processed and denied.

All regrade requests that when reviewed indicate an error in grading will be promptly corrected. If the regrade request only includes clearly identifiable grading errors that end in favor of the student, the “Grade Change (Improvement or Reduction)” section does not apply.

Submitting a regrade request re-opens the student assignment for re-evaluation. During the re-evaluation of the student assignment, a decision will be made. If it is determined a grade change is in order, the student grade will be updated. The grade change could be increased in the student’s favor or decreased if it is noted that a deduction was missed. Grade deductions will follow the grading rubric.

Subjective grade scores with ranges are oftentimes difficult to standardize. As such, they will not be reviewed or changed in a regrade request without definitive support that the rubric item was fully met. If there is a rubric item with a range for deductions (“up to -X points”) and the student feels that the deduction was simply “too harsh” or “unfair” will not be reviewed.  Our grading procedures include a high-level view of all graders’ assigned grades, allowing us to systematically review this rather than looking case-by-case.

Rubric items without a range for deductions (-X points) will not be reviewed without definitive support that the rubric item was fully met. These rubric items are “all or nothing” meaning the student fully met the requirement(s) and received full credit, or the student did not fully meet the requirement (regardless of the percentage of requirements met) and received no credit.

We reserve the right to defer subjective regrades till the end of the semester. If deferred, after all, course grades have been released the staff will review to determine if the request would result in a letter grade change and only process those.

Per-project grade-chasing or chasing a higher grade on multiple projects creates additional overhead to the course staff that takes away from providing assistance to students and completing course improvements. The staff would rather assist students in learning the material and be generous at the end of the course than spending precious time debating minor grade improvements on individual assignments throughout the semester.

The outcome of the regrade request will be handled via a new Canvas comment attached to the assignment in question only. To get notifications of a new Canvas comment, review the notification settings of Canvas.

There are multiple stages of the regrading process. At the completion of each stage, a Canvas comment will be added to the student’s assignment in question. If a student feels the answer is not satisfactory, the student can invoke the next stage by resubmitting the Assignment Follow-Up Form again. The stages are outlined below.

Stage I (Grader)

The original grader reviews the request, summarizes the re-evaluation findings to the Head TA. The Head TA will ensure that the findings are in line with the rubric and submit the result to the student.

Stage II (Head TA)

The Head TA will re-evaluate the student assignment, review both the student and grader comments and make a determination.

Stage III (Instructor)

The instructor will re-evaluate the student assignment, review the student, grader, and Head TA comments and make a determination.