Perennial frustrations swirl around ROSI. In January, hundreds of students complained to the Arts and Science Students’ Union about waiting for their marks. The Faculty of Arts and Science tries to upload marks within 10 days of the last day of class or the final exam. ASSU president Gavin Nowlan has suggested that this timeframe was compromised.
“It started last year because there was some sort of delay that wasn’t really explained to us. A bunch of marks didn’t get up from Spring term until very late after the deadline,” said Nowlan. “We had the same problem in first semester. Graduate programs need transcripts to grant preliminary re-enrollment, and you can’t submit transcripts with grades missing.”
Professors currently have the option of submitting student marks online or with a paper form. This document is then sent to department and upon approval is sent to the Faculty of Arts and Science, which also signs off on the suitability of the marks assigned. Using the paper form means more lag time, as a staff member then has to type in the marks.
“By next year all marks will come in electronically,” said Glenn Loney, assistant dean and faculty registrar of arts and science. “We’re definitely over the 50 per cent mark at getting them electronically.”
Loney said the wait time for marks on ROSI has not increased. “I think it’s a bit of a misperception. I think it’s a gap between how soon they hope they’ll be up and when they normally are. There is nothing unusual about these rounds of uploading marks,” he said.
Nowlan disagrees. When he began receiving complaints, he sent out a message via the ASSU listserv and Facebook. “We got hundreds and hundreds of responses across all years and across all divisions of the faculty of students who said they hadn’t gotten any marks up until mid to late January,” he said.
“The faculty has been slow in addressing the fact that the system is not satisfying the needs of students right now: marks are getting in too slowly and there is no good reason for it.”
Students not facing graduate program deadlines can still be affected, as they can’t reflect on past performance when they’re picking courses. “I don’t know what my marks are,” said Helenaz Hajifattahi, a first-year student at Trinity College, “I can’t make my plans for next year.”
With files from Jane Bao
