Providing Context for the Contextualized Transcript: A Case Study

Tell us a little about your session.

The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill is engaged in an ongoing project in adopting contextualized transcripts to provide additional background for how a student performs in a class. We plan to add the average class grades and percentile ranking to students’ transcripts, as well as a “Schedule Point Average,” which will represent the grade-point average for the average student taking the same classes.

This has been a long and extended process for a number of reasons and we are not yet in the position to release the contextualized transcript without risking considerable negative effects. When focusing on large projects with definite timelines, you often run the risk in leaving some of the most important people behind (the students) while focusing on the big discussion. There is a large debate taking place nationally and on our campus about “what should the transcript be.” Many campuses are moving toward e-portfolios, extended transcripts and competency-based assessments — at this time, we’re only supplying grades on our transcript with additional context.

I will be examining the technical and functional needs and critiques on the project and how technology and campus policy affect each other.

What are some student and institutional benefits of a contextualized transcript? What were some challenges that you faced in implementing the contextualized transcript?

We hope that making our faculty’s grading patterns more transparent would lessen the number of students “shopping” for courses taught by faculty who are easy graders. With contextualized transcripts, students who maintain a higher grade in tougher classes will be rewarded on their transcript. Another challenge we faced was how to introduce the new transcript to students with the technology we had.

It sounds like this would be a pretty good safeguard against grade inflation.

The least controversial portion of this project has been the reports developed to inform faculty and campus officials on grading patterns. In my presentation, I will show a dashboard of reports we use to see an individual professor’s grading patterns. Department chairs are using this tool to see how professors are instructing and grading different sections of the same course. The context we’re providing the faculty is invaluable and will be a tool to combat grade inflation. The main—and controversial—question is whether it is fair for students to bear the burden of grade inflation by putting this information on their transcript.

Could you tell me more about scheduled point averages?

The Schedule Point Average has been a very critical piece of this entire project. The Schedule Point Average s a new measure developed for the contextualized transcript and represents the grade-point average for an average student taking the same courses. The transcript will also record how the student compares to the median grades for every class taken that semester.

Is UNC-Chapel Hill the only institution to do this?

UNC-Chapel Hill is the first institution to implement the contextualized transcript in this particular form. There have been other schools that have experimented with providing some context on their transcript, or implementing grade quotas.

Our sister institutions in the UNC system are closely observing us as we adopt these transcripts.

RIght. So schools within system know how to consistently interpret the contextualized transcript for students transferring from your campus.

Exactly, and as we're moving closer to an electronic transcript, one of the things we have to address is how our partner institutions will consume this new information on the transcript and evaluate it. We plan to discuss this topic further with a number of institutions over the next year.

What are some lessons you want attendees to take away from your session?

The lessons we have learned so far have been invaluable to our campus, and my main goal in this presentation is to pass some of these lessons on to the attendees. When we went to PeopleSoft five years ago, the main rule was, “Technology should never drive policy.” What we have learned is that technology will always have a role in policy, and vice-versa. You have to understand what you are hoping to achieve with your policy or technology, and if either affect that outcome in a negative way, you need to take a step back and re-evaluate the tools you have.

Christopher Derickson

Assistant Provost and University Registrar

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill