Grade Recorder clarification note: All assignments in this class can be submitted over a long period of time -- sometimes the whole semester. The reasons for this submission philosophy is to make the course convenient and conducive to learning. With a long term open assignment period one does not have to allow for make-ups. If you wait with a semester assignment until the last minute, so that you miss the deadline (or if your dog ate your homework the last minute with no time to do it again), you must accept the consequence of losing the grade points for that assignment -- for whatever reason, including emergencies...

Posting grades is time consuming, and it takes away time from, things like, posting help desk messages to help hard working students, or doing necessary updates of online class pages (such as adding clarifying notes like this). This is one reason why Blackboard in this technology age is used to manage classes. Many grades can be setup to be posted automatically when an assignment is submitted, or some assignment grades like (objective) "all or nothing" -- 100 or zero -- assignments, can be explained on class instruction pages making grade posting unnecessary.

Assignments submitted on Blackboard bulletin boards are such "all or nothing" assignments mentioned above. For example, the instructions for the "introductory posting" assignment calls for minimum 1 spell checked post, minimum 50 words. All students know how to count to 1, and these days it is very easy to do a word count -- to 50 -- and spell check with the help of the computer. There is no need for (subjective) grading by the instructor -- counting to 1 and 50 and to make sure the post has been spell checked is not subjective grading -- so there is no need to post grades. You either did the assignments as required (minimum 1 message, spell checked, minimum 50 words) and earned 100, or you didn't do as required and instructed, and earned a zero...

Dr. Nilsson (Posted 29 August 2013, updated 17 January 2014.)