Subject: ECE260: Exam Grading Process

ECE260 Students,

Since the midterm exams carry a very large weight in the course
grade, it is important for me to ensure a reasonable level of quality
in the exam grading.  To accomplish this quality control, I employ
a formal exam-grading review process.  In particular, for each
exam, after the TAs finish the initial grading of the exam papers,
I randomly sample approximately 20% of the papers and carefully
examine the grading of those papers looking for potential issues.
If any grading issues are found, I ask the TAs to address these
issues before the graded exam papers are returned to students.
In cases where a grading error might also affect other papers
outside of the reviewed subset, the TAs are asked to check all of
the papers (not just the ones in the reviewed subset) for similar
issues and correct any errors found.  This means that the review
process is particularly effective at catching widespread systemic
grading issues, since such issues are likely to surface even in a
relatively small random sample, and any resulting corrections then
benefit every student in the class.  Although this approach cannot
catch all grading problems, it does greatly improve the overall
reliability of grading.

The downside of the above review process is that it typically delays
the return of the graded exam papers by a few days (due to time
needed for me to review the grading and time for TAs to address any
issues found during my review).  I wanted to make you aware of the
above exam-grading review process so you understand why the exams
may take longer to return than you might otherwise expect.

--Michael