Final grades available after May 14

Students will be able to view their final grades after May 14, said Barb Boltz, project director of enrollment data and system support.

The delay is related to the university’s new Banner operating system, which was implemented this spring.

Under the old system, Boltz said, students could view their final grades before they became official. The switch to Banner changed that, as students cannot see their grades until they are official.

“In the system that was prior to Spring 2008, grades weren’t final till midnight of the Tuesday night, but (students) could go out into the self-service piece (on FlashLine) and look at their unofficial transcript,” Boltz said. “They could see their grades as the instructor had been given to them. But that grade wasn’t yet finalized until processes that really ran between midnight Tuesday night and Wednesday morning (were completed).”

Under Banner, students will be unable to see their grades until processes to make grades official, such as GPA calculation, are completed, Boltz said.

“The grading period has to end, which was midnight (on Wednesday), and processes have to run,” Boltz said. “There’s like 16 of them, and they’re running them now. And as soon as those processes are run, then the grades are available for everybody to see, as far as who has authorized access.”

Students can currently view their Spring 2008 grades on KAPS reports, but Boltz said those grades are unofficial.

Boltz said the university hopes to have the processes completed by the end of the day today. Because this is the first time the university has used Banner to record final grades, however, Boltz said that the processes could take longer.

She said the university is almost positive the processes will be done by tomorrow morning, allowing students to see their official final grades.

“Since this is the first time, we’re kind of just doing estimates,” Boltz said. “Some things will run faster than we estimate, some things will run slower. So we’re kind of in the, ‘Here’s what we’re going to find out for real (mindset).’ You can test them all you want in test, but when you go to the real thing, it’s different.”

Contact managing editor Doug Gulasy at [email protected].