Online Access for Incomplete Grades

At the end of the semester, when a student is not able to complete all assignments or exams, or the student has extenuating circumstances such as an illness, the instructor has the option to extend the student’s assignment due date and assign an “Incomplete” grade for the course.

Reasons for an Incomplete

Reasons for assigning an Incomplete include:

• The student was not able to complete a final project, end-of-semester research paper, or final exam because of an illness, accident, family emergency, or other unpredictable incident.
• The student requested an extension on a final assignment, but the new due date is past the course end date.
• The student is not able to complete a final project because of available resources, incomplete surveys or experiments or data analysis, or other assignment-related purposes.
• The student wants to revise previously-submitted assignments for a higher grade.
• A student with disability or testing accommodations is not able to take the final exam before the course end date.

Not all students may quality for an Incomplete. Many institutions have specific requirements or conditions for when an Incomplete may be assigned. These may include:

• The student has completed much of the course and is missing only a final assignment or final exam. For example, the school may require that the student has already completed 75% of the course.
• The student currently has a passing or other letter grade in the course.
• The student may not pass the course without completion of the missing assessments.

When students receive an Incomplete grade, they usually sign a document or receive an email that lists the assignments to be completed and the due dates. Instructors often identify specific due dates for the missing work, but many schools also have a policy of extending the course for one more semester or a full year. After that time, any missing assignments are counted as zeros, and the instructor changes the final grade.

Or, if the student submits the missing work on time, the instructor grades the assignments and changes the Incomplete grade to whatever the student has earned.

How to Extend Access in an Online Course

In traditional in-person courses, the student simply emails or delivers a paper copy of the document to the instructor, or the student makes up a missing exam in the Testing Center.

In online classes, the student’s access to the online course is often extended so the student can access instructional materials and assignment guidelines, complete online exams, and submit online assignments.

However, extending online access can be challenging… Here are several options and things to consider.

Extend the Course End Date

Simply extending the course end date keeps the course available for all students for a prolonged period of time. (Many colleges have policies to close the course at the end of the academic term or a few weeks after the term.) This can be problematic because students will continue to have access to assignment and exam information they can share with students in the next semester. Students who have completed the course may also be annoyed or confused about why their completed course is still available.

Extended Access for Individual Students

Institutions can create a different student role on the LMS that allows them to access the course even after the course end date. At the end of the semester, the enrollment status for students with Incomplete grades changes to this different student role, and only these students are able to access the course. This is obviously beneficial for them because they can continue to access instructional materials and assignments, but their access to all previous assignments and exams also creates a risk for academic integrity.

This option requires that the institution have this student role on the LMS and a process for managing student roles. The best option is to automate the change in enrollment status, but the change may not happen if an instructor has not submitted final grades. The student may also not have enough time to complete missing work if the automated process allows only a few weeks of time. This option requires some technical skill, intentional planning, and participation by many people throughout the institution.

When the automated process is not available, the same activities can be performed manually, but this process depends on accurate timing by instructors, registrars, and instructional technology staff to make sure that all students with Incomplete grades are accounted for, that the correct people are notified, and that instructional technology staff have the availability to process these enrollment changes manually. When the student completes the work, all parties will need to be notified again to restore the student’s course enrollment to the original student status.

Use Groups, Sections, and Restrictions

Students with extended access can also be added to a group, and access to select course materials and assignments can be limited by assigning groups or other accessibility restrictions. However, it may be time consuming to assign restrictions and groups to all materials, and different students may have different assignments to make up as part of their Incomplete grade. Plus, if instructors copy online course shells from one semester to another, they will need to undo all the group assignments and restrictions for the next semester.

Create a Temporary or Partial Course

Another option is to create a different, temporary course shell, copy only the remaining material, and enroll only the students with Incomplete grades.  Partial courses can be effective for limiting access, but they cause discontinuity in the online gradebook, so students lose access to grades from previous assignments. Instructors will also need to update the original gradebook manually. Different students may also need different materials, so one partial course may not meet the needs of all students.

Students who are completing major assignments may need access to a lot of course material. Or, if the final exam is cumulative, the student may need to review all of the course materials and previous homework. In this case, it is not possible to choose select materials to copy into the temporary course, and a course with limited content may prevent the student from preparing for the final exam or completing a semester-long project.

Additionally, completed work in a temporary course shell (which gets deleted or archived soon after) may be inaccessible by instructors or administrators reviewing course information and student records in the future. For example, if a student submits a grade appeal, and an adjunct instructor who created and deleted a temporary course shell is no long available, there will be no record of the student’s completed work to review.

Enroll Students in a Different Active Course

Incomplete grades are typically assigned for missing individual projects such as end-of-semester research papers or final exams, but it is possible for a student to receive an Incomplete grade for missing group work or assignments that have an experiential component, such as service-learning or a research project.

In this case, the student could be enrolled into a different semester’s course section so the student could participate in live, collaborative, and experiential components.

However, this approach can cause many problems:

• It may not be allowed by FERPA or other privacy concerns to mix students from different course sections because class information (including student enrollment information) is potentially exposed, especially if the instructor states that the student is from another course section or has an incomplete grade.
• The class community or group work may be disrupted by the sudden appearance of a new student, especially in low-enrolled course sections, where students have already developed a strong connection.
• Online gradebook information, billing, scholarship, financial aid, registration, and course transcript information may become confusing. For example, did the student complete the original course section, or did the student transfer to the new course section? Should the grade be trascripted for the previous semester or for the new one? Do credit hours and financial aid eligibility belong to the previous semester or to the current one?
• Finally, evidence of the student’s work will again be scattered between two courses, and it may cause problems for grade appeals and course-program assessment purposes.

Use Email, Virtual Conferences, or Paper

Another option is the for the online course to revert to a low-tech format. The instructor may provide course materials such as PowerPoint presentations and journal articles through an online folder or via email, and the student could email assignment documents. Or, the student could complete paper versions of the exam in the Testing Center. The instructor could also provide individualized tutoring through video conferencing or a phone call.

This low-tech approach has several limitations.

• The student would lose access to previous online course content, which may be useful for comprehensive exams and semester-long projects.
• The student would also lose access to grades on previous assignments, though he or she could also print or save a copy of the gradebook before online access ends.
• The instructor would have to provide materials and grade assignments via email or paper. The instructor would also have to update the gradebook manually.
• The instructor could upload emailed files into the original online course. If the instructor does not, there again won’t be a record of the student’s work if there is a grade appeal.

Conclusion

It’s important to provide options for students who cannot complete an online course by the end of the semester, but each option has its benefits and challenges. How do you accommodate access to online courses for students incomplete grades?

Lirim Neziroski, Ph.D., MBA is a higher education administrator, education consultant, and previous faculty member with expertise in higher ed leadership, instructional technology, curriculum development, academic assessment, program leadership, and strategic planning. Contact Lirim for speaking, consulting, and writing opportunities.