Grades Security

Keeping Grades Secure (YouTube, 1m 48s)

Teaching staff are responsible for ensuring marks and grades are secure. Examples of good practice are provided to help you in the Ppl 3.10.02 Assessment - Protecting Grade Integrity Guides (click on the Guidelines tab).

Practical steps you can take to improve Grades management and security include:

General computer security

• Use strong passwords, that are not reused and are changed regularly. Also, ensure that you do not share your login username and password. Refer to the ITS UQ passwords guide.
• Lock your computer when you are away from your desk. Refer to How to lock a PC and How to lock a Mac.
• Take care when using public or untrusted computers. i.e. In e-zones or computer labs

Use a central system

• Grade management and security are built-in. i.e. ITS provide logging and monitoring of Grade Centre activity.
• Consider using Learn.UQ (Blackboard) to reduce manual transfer errors.
• Minimise use of spreadsheets and if used, ensure they are store on a UQ network drive with access only to relevant staff.

Record reasons for mark changes

• In Grade Centre you can add comments when you change a mark and logs of changes are automatically recorded. Refer to the Edit a mark and record a reason guide.
• If using a spreadsheet, turn on track changes to record document history and use comments to read reasons for mark changes. Refer to Track changes in a Shared Workbook and Annotate a worksheet by using comments.

Review the history of mark changes

You should view the history of mark changes to audit their validity and to check for errors before transferring grades to SI-net.

• Grade Centre: Use the Grade History tool to review changes before finalising grades. Comments you have added about why marks were updated will show in this report. Refer to the Grade History Report.
• Spreadsheets: Review the tracked changes and comments.

Please contact help@elearning.uq.edu.au if you would like anything suspicious investigated.

Restriction of Grades for Marking

Final exam results should be hidden from students during final marking and mark uploading to SI-net. Refer to the Grade Centre - Control the Release of Results guide.