(1) Guideline Course Grade Bands and Avoiding Grade Inflation

It is recommended to follow HKUST’s Guidelines for Use of Undergraduate Course Grade Distribution Bands, which outline HKUST’s experience with course grading and criterion-referenced assessment since adopting outcome-based education in 2008.

The grade descriptors and guideline course grade distribution bands are intended to:

• Indicate the standards students are expected to achieve;
• Provide existing distributions of grades as a benchmark for thrusts/pillars/base as they review course grades;
• Provide a basis for discussion of course grades in cases of disagreement;
• Encourage uniformity of practice to ensure fairness of treatment of students;
• Discourage grade inflation over time;
• Assist in maintaining the relationship between students’ achievement in courses and the distribution of the classification of final awards.

(2) Grade Moderation

Sampling of assessed work for review

To ensure that marks or grades are awarded appropriately and consistently with adherence to the pre-designed rubrics and assessment criteria, a post-assessment moderation system is introduced.

1. For assessments that contribute 30% or more towards the final course grade:

• Two items of students’ work rated in each of the following categories of standard of achievement of the assessment criteria should be second marked (maximum 8 samples): “Excellent Performance/Achievement”, “Good Performance/Achievement”, “Satisfactory Performance/Achievement”, and “Fail”. If the class size is fewer than 10 students, the sample selection can be adjusted by the course offering unit, but it must ensure that at least 1 sample for each assessment criteria is second marked.
• Assessments marked initially by the Course TA should be second marked by the Course/Section Instructor or another faculty member nominated by the Course/Section Instructor.
• Assessments marked initially by the Course/Section Instructor should be second marked by another faculty member nominated by the Course/Section Instructor.
• In all cases, the Course/Section Instructor should agree the final mark for the sampled assessments in consultation with the TA/other faculty member as appropriate.

2. For samples of assessments marked initially by the Course TA and where the marks differed significantly from those awarded by the second marker, the Course/Section Instructor should second-mark all students’ work for the assessments concerned and award the final marks.

3. For samples of assessments marked initially by the Course/Section Instructor and where the marks differed significantly from those awarded by the second marker, the Course/Section Instructor should ask the Head of Thrust/Pillar/Base to identify another faculty member to second-mark all students' work for the assessments concerned and agree on the final marks to be awarded with the Course/Section Instructor.

4. Samples of students’ work that had been second marked would be retained by the Thrust/Pillar/Base for consideration by external reviewers during periodic program review.

5. The name(s) of the second marker(s) of a Course/Section shall be recorded on the grade reporting system.

6. Heads of Thrust/Pillar/Base will be responsible for administering the above and ensuring adherence.

To safeguard academic standards and prevent grade inflation over time, it is good practice for faculty to review grade distributions annually in regard to historical distributions for their courses, to determine whether the assessments were sufficiently challenging to allow differentiation of student performance and to monitor the standards of marking. To this end, each term Course Instructors and Heads of Thrust/Pillar/Base are provided with the grade distributions of their courses for the three previous years, for reference. Additionally, any occurrence of awarding an A+ grade as the final grade for an undergraduate course must be supported by a justification provided by the course instructor or coordinator.

The following Grade Distribution Guideline Bands are derived based on HKUST's past grading experience for undergraduate courses, providing the reference for the design of assessments wherein a sufficiently challenging course will normally have grades fall within the guideline bands:

A	10-25%
B	25-40%
C	25-40%
D	5-10%
F	0-5%

When the course grading deviates from the course grade distribution bands, these cases will be reviewed by the Thrust/Pillar/Base committee responsible for teaching and learning prior to grade approval. In the event that the Thrust/Pillar Committee has not been established, the Hub Program Committee will make the decision instead.

The HKUST’s Guidelines for Use of Undergraduate Course Grade Distribution Bands acknowledge that there are justifiable variations in grade distributions among Schools and between introductory courses (levels 1000 or 2000) and advanced courses (levels 3000 or 4000); and that there is no intention to use a rigid rule to artificially force course grades to a preset distribution, which would go against the spirit of academic freedom and criterion referencing.

However, where undergraduate course grades fall outside the above guideline bands, faculty and instructors assigning grades should consider moderating their marking/grades, where appropriate, to assure themselves that the grades are academically justified, and should be ready to explain their grading decisions.

Faculty members are also encouraged to consider the influence of class size, eg. very small classes and pedagogy, such as individual or group project, which are less straightforward than examinations, in the grading process.