Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: The issue arose as a result of a lack of clarity around the 4% bonus marks for the course and was exacerbated by confusion over who had 'control' over this aspect of the grades and by delays in response on the part of the TA.


Briefly, I participated in essentially ALL of the classes, tutorials (sitting at the front of the class) and an outside private study group where classmates met in person and held discussions through email. I also attempted to post one question to the course discussion board (which garnered no responses). I also spoke to a neighbour who works in coding and has mentored many graduates and applied it to my code. It turns out the only way to obtain the 4% bonus was to post on the discussion board, but this requirement was not revealed until after the course ended. Therefore, despite my genuine and significant engagement in the course, I received no bonus marks. I would like to have the 4% added to my grade and can provide evidence of the study group and of my talks with my neighbour if needed.


History (notices and emails attached)


1. The course syllabus lists a 4% bonus mark with no limitations on how those will be awarded (this was available from the start of class and was never updated).


2. On April 10 (Easter Monday), the final exam for the class was held. Following the exam, this message was posted to OnQ :


The bonus (up to 4 points) will be given to the Students who participated positively in the discussion panels (i.e., post questions, answer questions, provide educational links, and programming suggestions).

--Maram


Looking back over the discussion board, I can see that around this time (April 10), a number of students started posting responses to questions asked at the beginning of January in what I can only assume was an effort to 'clock' some bonus points.


3. On April 14, this message was posted to OnQ:


Overal grade -- Follow-up
Posted Apr 14, 2023 9:13 PM

Hello everyone,

Further to Marams' message below, please review your grades and contact your TA if you have issues. It is much easier to change the grades on onQ than after being released to SOLUS.

Final grades will be uploaded to SOLUS on Monday.

Thanks,

-- Hazem

-------------------------------------------------------

Hello everyone,

You will be able to see your overall course mark on Friday evening after 7 pm.
You have Friday and the weekend to review your gradebook.

If you have a missing mark or have questions, please contact your assigned TA. I will not be able to answer questions related to
your marks. Please don't reach out asking for a make-up assignment or re-evaluation of your assignments, as this is not possible.
Reach out only if there is a serious mistake in the gradebook that needs adjustment.

In case you don't know who your assigned TA is, please check which group you belong to on OnQ, then check in one of my announcements the TA assigned to each group. This information was communicated several times throughout the term. Please find it online.

Good luck with your finals

-- Maram


4. Grades were available for review at 7 pm on April 14 on OnQ


5. I reviewed my grade on the morning of April 15th and found that I was not awarded any bonus marks. I immediately wrote to Professor Abbas at 11:53 am on April 15th, asking for the bonus marks due to my efforts in and outside the class and as there had been no clarity as to how one was to achieve those bonus marks..


6. Professor Abbas responded almost immediately that I needed to contact the TA, Marion Anglin, as she was in charge of that issue.


7. At 12:01 pm on April 15th, I wrote to Ms. Anglin asking for the bonus marks while also trying to resolve another grade problem, again related to a lack of information at the outset of the assignment and then a late clarification.


8. Having received no response from Ms. Anglin, I again wrote on April 16th at 5:47 pm to clarify my position about the bonus marks and highlight a few ways I had participated in class.


9. On April 17th at 5:16 pm, Ms. Anglin responded (51 hours after my original email). She agreed to remark on the assignment and adjust the grade because there had been mistakes in marking my assignment. On the issue of the bonus marks, she specifically acknowledged that clarification was made that the bonus was to be awarded solely on the discussion board posts only at the end of the term. Also, she mentioned that she was still inputting (and clearly able to change a student's grade because she was altering my own assignment mark). She said:


Unfortunately, I am unable to give you the bonus marks. I agree that it was unfair of the instructor to only advertise the bonus marks towards the end of the class, but sadly there is nothing I can do about this, as the requirement was active participation in the discussion boards. Marion


10. On April 18th at 12:58 pm, Ms. Anglin wrote to state that she had made a grade change from 82.54% to 83.49% based on the re-marking of my assignment.


At this point, it was a busy exam time for me as a first-year life science student, and I did not want to take too much time from the instructors during exams. I decided to take the issue up again once my exams were complete and I had moved out of residence.


11. On April 23rd, the day after I moved home, I wrote to Professor Abbas, taking the time to draft a more thought-out email. In it, I explained that I had been an active, engaged student, pointing out how I had participated and that I felt that it was fair to request the 4%.


12. On April 23rd, Professor Abbas responded quickly and questioned why I had waited so long to raise the issue. This was confusing to me, given that I raised it within 17 hours of the marks being released on April 14th.


13. On April 24th, I responded to Professor Abbas and explained that I did raise the issue with him within 17 hours of receiving my grade and that he told me to contact the TA.


14. On April 24th, Professor Abbas responded (red edit to my email found in the attached word document.) with comments which do not address the core issue. He stated that I did not follow the clear instructions on how to change a grade, except that I did.


15. On April 24th, I responded, attempting to apologize for my tone but explaining that I did follow the correct timelines and instructions (in fact, I submitted my request within 17 hours of a 53-hour time frame). In addition, I contacted both him and the TA within that time. When the TA did not respond within a day, I also contacted her again. I did everything he suggested I ought to have done. He also mentioned that the TA reached out to him, but by that time, it was 'too late', which I do not understand.


16. In Professor Abbas's final email on April 24th, he stated that



The TAs should have responded within 24-hours of any student request. They know that. You should have contacted me right away, especially with the TA is not responding in a reasonable time. Responding on the 18th was way beyond the allowed time frame (I had to upload to SOLUS on the 17th). She contacted me after that, but it was too late, unfortunately.



There are many lessons learned from your case and I will try to make use of them.


17. On April 27th, I wrote to Professor Abbas, agreeing that lessons were learned but emphasising that the actual grade is important to me and that I would like to escalate the matter to someone with the authority to review my grade.


18 On April 27th, Professor Abbas referred me to the undergraduate chair of computing Yuanzhu Chen.

19 On may 3rd,Yuanzhu Chen said that referred me to you.


Discussion


This issue I am raising with you arises from the lack of clear information and detail in the syllabus concerning the grading for the course (specifically the bonus marks). It was exacerbated by the TAs ignoring the obvious confusion of the students about how to achieve the bonus marks, as documented in the discussion board on March 28 and by everyone failing to post clarification about the bonus marks to the student-wide OnQ message system until after the class (including the exam) had already ended. Finally, it was compounded by the lack of timely response from the TA and the confusion between the professor and the TA as to the process and responsibility for changing marks once I brought the issue to their attention (within 17 hours of learning, I had not been awarded the bonus marks).


Other students may have taken different tactics to 'deal with' the problem surrounding the bonus mark mystery, and many, I assume, decided not to pursue the marks for whatever reason. The fact that other students choose different paths does not make my decision to pursue it directly with the TA and professor unavailable to other students (it is not unfair to other students that I am making this point for my own grades as they also had the option to do so).


Fundamentally, I followed the syllabus and participated in every class/tutorial (except one due to illness). I not only attended but sat at the front of the class and responded to many in-class questions. I was part of an ongoing active study group of peers. I discussed the class materials with an expert in the coding community. I reviewed my tests and assignments and followed up with the TA when I had questions or just wanted to learn from further clarification. On more than one occasion, the TA told me that though she agreed with my understanding and approach, there was nothing she could do (this was an ongoing issue in the course). Finally, I have taken the time to draft emails and communicate with the TA, professor and you as to the 'glitch' in the course. All of my actions demonstrate more commitment to the subject matter and the process than several of the posts on the discussion board would have (more below). If the 4% is a bonus for connection to the course, I believe I merit that addition to my grade.


If the 4% is a technicality to be awarded based on an algorithmic posting of a certain number of posts or replies, that should have been communicated to the students clearly and in a timely manner. Of significance is that it should have been posted on OnQ or in the syllabus early in the term to give every student the same information not announced in some sections and perhaps forgotten in others.


As it was, that announcement about the bonus marks was made on April 10th, directly following the exam (which was held outside of the exam period) and, thus, technically, after the end of the course. Why would there be an announcement after the course ended explaining to students that they would get bonus marks for posting on a discussion board about the course material? Wouldn't the discussion board about the course subject material be somewhat irrelevant at this point (not totally if one sees education as an ongoing pursuit)?


Even the post on OnQ was unclear as it did not actually state a cut-off date for posting to the discussion board. Given that the course had ended when the announcement was made, one could imply that the date to post had already passed. Nor did it specify how much participation or the type of participation on the discussion board was required to achieve the full 4%. Do replies count the same as original posts? Do educational links count for the same amount, and how do programming suggestions tie into academic integrity? How many posts would be required to achieve 4%, and does it matter if the information on the posts is accurate or valuable? Do you need to reply to posts? Taken in sum, the lack of clarity leads to a completely arbitrary use of the 4% bonus marks, which is contrary to the way a course should work.


The bonus (up to 4 points) will be given to the Students who participated positively in the discussion panels (i.e., post questions, answer questions, provide educational links, and programming suggestions).

--Maram


I did hear a rumour that one student had been given bonus marks from a different tutor for a particularly elegant code assignment. In fact, this was so early in the term that I assumed that was how the bonus marks were to be earned. It made the announcement on April 10 even more surprising.


I do not know what happened with those students who got wind of the bonus requirement to post and posted a flurry of out-of-date responses between March 28th and April 10th. I do not know how some students knew about the posting requirements earlier. It may have been mentioned in some sections and not others. I did see students posting replies after the course ended on April 10 to questions asked at the beginning of January (January 9) about the coding language we were using. Other students were posting questions such as what music is good to listen to while coding. Again, that post was still receiving replies as late as April 14th.


Looking back over the discussion board thread now, I can see that on March 28th, a few students began to try to figure out how to achieve the bonus marks. Assuming the discussion board is monitored by the professor and or the TAs, that post should have provoked an announcement on OnQ at the end of March at the latest to ensure that all sections and all students had the same information. If such action had been taken, I would have posted the required posts to gain the 4%, but since the TAs and professors took no action to make sure everyone was aware, I did not have this opportunity until after the course ended. Given that the post is still open and there seems to be little respect for information being time-sensitive, I was tempted to post a series of comments to fulfill the requirement technically. However, that seemed against the spirit of honest academic participation.


Professor Abbas asserted that the discussion board was used by lots of students, so the entire class must have known that it was the only way to achieve the bonus points; this is false. As a student, if I did not have a study group, I might post on the discussion board in an effort to get some peer support. In addition, it might mean that those posting knew it provided bonus points, but the larger full student body did not know, given that there are several different sections of the course. Finally, it is not even true that lots of students were using the discussion board. It highlights the exact opposite since I assume the majority of students would post in order to get a 4% bonus, yet only around 20% of the class posted to the discussion board, which suggests that most students did not know this was how to get the bonus mark.


I did a very basic calculation on the discussion board posts. Assuming each person posted only 4 times (to get the marks) and taking into consideration that there are over 500 students registered in the course, I calculated only 21% of the class was participating. If some students posted more regularly using it as an actual resource, not just for the bonus marks, the percentage would be even lower.


My overall impression looking over the threads, is that while a slim group was using it as an online study group, others were scrambling at the end of the term to gain the bonus points. However, even the students scrambling were a very small minority of the overall class. My perception is that most of the students did not know it was being used as a method to give bonus marks until April 10th, when the message appeared.


The message board was not a place of majority-rich discussion that was happening in the tutorials, nor was it the obvious method to gain the 4% participation mark. The most commented-upon post was the one which asked, What music should I listen to while coding (posted on March 18th and still receiving replies four days after the end of the class on April 14th). The second most active post is the one from March 28th, asking how to achieve the bonus marks.


Obviously, it is not possible to take attendance in classes of this size or even the tutorials; however, other courses, such as math and physics, use the clicker system to monitor student engagement/participation in every class for the entire term. Participation marks in those courses are founded upon your actual in-class engagement (and that is outlined in the syllabus from the outset). In psychology, there is a clear explanation of how to get bonus marks through participation in research studies, again outlined in the syllabus (even with an alternative arrangement for those who do not wish to be subjects in research). In Anatomy, bonus marks were awarded based on attendance at 'open forums.' This, again, was clearly outlined in the syllabus.


On the issue of course administration and the importance of timelines, I am flummoxed by Professor Abbas's response. It is clear from the history that I brought this issue to the attention of the professor and the TA not only well within the time frame they had outlined but also to each of them separately. And in the case of the TA, on more than one occasion when she failed to respond. It is unfair to outline a time frame of at least 51 hours and then penalise me when I initiate the process within the first 17 hours. The dithering and passing of the questions back and forth lengthened and muddied the issue until it was claimed that they had run out of time to change my grade, but all of the delays were a direct result of the TA and the professor.


I did take a break from emailing once they told me they could no longer change my grade on April 18th because I was in the middle of a very stressful first-year exam week. As soon as I returned to my home after my exams, I resumed the discussion. I have taken from April 27th until now to write a full and carefully considered account.

It is inexplicable to me for the TA to write :



Unfortunately, I am unable to give you the bonus marks. I agree that it was unfair of the instructor to only advertise the bonus marks towards the end of the class, but sadly there is nothing I can do about this, as the requirement was active participation in the discussion boards. Marion

(note the notice she is referring to is actually on April 10th, when the class had technically ended not 'towards the end' but after the end)


and for the professor to write :



The TAs should have responded within 24-hours of any student request. They know that. You should have contacted me right away, especially with the TA is not responding in a reasonable time. Responding on the 18th was way beyond the allowed time frame (I had to upload to SOLUS on the 17th). She contacted me after that, but it was too late, unfortunately.



There are many lessons learned from your case and I will try to make use of them.



(note that I did contact him originally on April 15th, and he told me to contact the TA, who I contacted on April 15th and 16th and only contacted me on April 17th. The TA failing to contact the professor until after that is not my fault, and also, the professor already had notice of my concern on April 15th so he too could have followed up with the TA over whom, unlike me, he has control.


Ultimately, both of them acknowledged that the process was unfair yet expected me to be satisfied to lose 4% of a possible grade due to their lack of clarity from the outset and not following their own process in the final stages.



I believe that by contacting the TAs, the professor and you, I am demonstrating an additional investment in communication about this class. I believe that my term participation warranted a 4% bonus based on my class/tutorial attendance, active participation in answering questions during class/tutorial, membership in a robust study group, and discussion with coding community members. I did get a lot out of the class, including increasing my skill and approach to data management and more general problems. In addition, I came to an appreciation of the usefulness of coding skills.


I would very much appreciate your awarding me the 4%, which would change my overall grade from a -A to an A.


If you have any follow-up questions, I will be happy to give you more details.


Sincerely
Samuel Gallo-Will