Overview of Course Credit Setup's Average Marks Rule

The Course Credit Calculation includes an option to allow students who fail part of a course to earn credit for a course as long as the overall average is passing. To use this option, the Course Credit Setup must be defined with the Use Average Marks Rule checkbox selected. If this option is selected, then when a student receives a failing mark, the calculation will look at a mark type that stores an average mark to see if the student's overall average for the course is passing. This topic explains the average mark rule. For more information on setting up course credit options, refer to Course Credit Setup Page.

The Course Credit Setup defines the mark types that are used to determine whether credit is earned, and, if you select to use the average marks rule, the mark type to use to check if the student's overall average is passing.

For each course, the calculation compares the student's marks to the level table indicated in the Master Schedule Course Level field. The level table indicates whether the mark is a passing or failing mark. If the mark is a passing mark, the student is awarded credit. Otherwise, the student does not earn credit for that part of the course.

Options for Average Mark Rules

If your district uses the average marks rule, you can select one of the following:

• to issue full credit if the overall average is passing.
• to issue full credit only if the overall average is passing and the student received a passing mark for the last mark issued for the course. You would use this option if you base full credit on the fact that the student's grades are improving at the end of the course.

Additionally, you can require that a student has at least a minimum failing mark in order to earn full credit for the course. For example, if marks 59 - 0 are failing marks and you only want students who fail with a mark of 50 or above to receive credit for the failed part of the course, you can specify that the minimum failing mark is 50. If a student fails with a mark of 49 or below, the student will not earn full credit for the course even if the average mark is passing.

Note that even if the average mark is not passing, the student can still earn credit for any marking periods where they received a passing mark.

Examples of Effect of Average Marks Rules 

*This scenario is rare and would only occur if a user had entered an average mark that was passing or if the average was based on a different mark type. In this example, the average for the final mark returned a Md (for Medical) grade that was issued for one of the marking periods.