Question #1 Do you mail grades to your students?	Question #2 If you currently mail grades, are you contemplating ceasing this practice?	Question #3 If you have eliminated grade mailers, have you experienced any negative repercussions/comments from students?	Question #3a Are there any circumstances in which you may mail grades to some students, i.e. upon request?	Question #3a How did you publicize to students the change from mailing grades to view grades on the web?	Question #3c Any additional words of wisdom when making the change?
Yes	Yes This fall.	No	No	Letting them know on the Fall mailer, student newspaper, mass e-mails.	No
No Stopped Summer 2002.	N/A	No matter what you do some students will say no one told them about the change. Students complained that since their name was not on the web page that presented their grades the feature was useless. We expected this and offered a telephone number and e-mail address to request a printed copy of their grades (actually a transcript) for free. Some didn’t read and complained.	Yes The telephone number and email address to request a printed copy of grades is still running.	Requested the faculty to announce in class, posters, article in the student newspaper. A letter was proposed, but vetoed because of cost. Looking back the best thing we could have done was the letter and have the letter include information about how to login into the web site. Grades are also available on our touch tone telephone system.	Some one is going to be upset. However, the time and cost savings are huge.
Yes	Yes Looking to end this practice next summer.	N/A	No	No	I liked what I heard is happening in Grand Rapids and plan to use them as my model.
Yes	Yes Last grade mailer was sent out August 2003.	No	I assume we will get requests for a printed copy. We’ll try to convince them to print a copy off the web, if that doesn’t work, we’ll print them a student transcript.	We plan on notifying students about their online access to grades via our website, posters, freshman orientation, and other media.	No
Question #1	Question #2	Questions #3	Question #3a	Question #3b	Question #3c
Yes	Yes Grades are sent out and also available on the web.	No	No	No	Please share final results.
No We send a postcard and provide lots of communication about how they can now get their grades online or in person. If they call, we will mail a copy to their home address. Very few (less than 100) are ever mailed, and those are usually for company reimbursements.	N/A	No Students are used to going on line, we know they have to at a 4 year institution, so we too must help students learn how to manage their own accounts. How can we call this a “college education”, if they do not even know how to access their own accounts. Students are now having this communicated to them from the point of entry into the College. The problem will be from those students who are currently attending and you have “changed” things on them. New students, no problem. It is all about communication and support systems for them.	If they request a copy, we do not argue, but do tell them where they may conveniently access their grades. We see it as a “teachable moment”.	A postcard, flyers in the classroom, schedule of classes, catalog, “on the web”, and on our phone message, in person, lots of places including the bathroom walls (Publication is called the Stall Street Journal).	Do it, improve it, don’t look back.
No/Yes Stopped mailing grades Spring/Summer 2003. Mail to students who request an official grade mailer.	N/A	No	Yes For students who request an official grade mailer. The request is available on the web through our Web for Student module. Some students may require an official grade mailer to obtain a reimbursement from an employer.	We publicize in the printed schedule, on the college web site, and we had a special note added to our “last” printed grade mailer for Winter 2003.	No
Question #1	Question #2	Questions #3	Question #3a	Question #3b	Question #3c
Yes/No Eliminated grade mailers a couple of year ago. Grade mailers were reinstated again.	Yes Thinking about eliminating grade mailers again. Since grades are accessible on WebAdvisor.	Received flack from faculty – not students.	No	No	No
Yes We still do, although they are available via the telephone system and on the web.	Yes I am. (I’m not sure that the college would look at this right now, but I am.)	N/A	We need to be able to provide something to scholarship agencies and to employers who reimburse their employees. This may be just a small percentage of grade reports, however, but once we stop printing them for everyone, we need a method of doing them for individuals if needed.	N/A I’d be interested in seeing the responses to this question.	N/A I’d be interested in seeing the responses to this question.
No Stopped Spring 2003	N/A	The biggest hurdle we had was getting our passwords and IDs to work correctly through our tech area.	We honored any requests for a paper copy of their report card.	We handed a notice to students when they registered.	Saved a bundle.
Yes	Yes	Talk to Howard at GRCC	Probably, when we get round to implementation	Not there, yet	No
No Ended Summer 2003	N/A	Very minor, in fact, we have had around 50 students who requested a printed term report be generated, mostly for use by employer. Students have access to grades off WebAdvisor and Tel Reg.	Upon request, note that we also stopped charging for transcripts over two years ago.	Included information in summer class schedule and a direct mail piece concerning new student information system was also sent to students.	We made this change at the same time we changed a number of policies and procedures related to new system. We also now require faculty to enter their own grades via WebAdvisor. If you are going to change things do them all at once.
Question #1	Question #2	Questions #3	Question #3a	Question #3b	Question #3c
Yes	Yes Probably another year.	No	No	No	No
Yes	Yes The goal is next fall.	N/A	No	No	We are just going to the Web this Fall. My goal would be to have grade mailers gone by next Fall. I would of course be interested in hearing your results on how best to phase this in.
No We discontinued automatic mailing of grades one year ago.	N/A	Yes We have had some complaints. In retrospect, we did not do enough to notify student of this change in practice.	Students may request grades for any or all terms. Sometimes this is necessary (e.g. when a student must submit grades to an employer in order to be reimbursed for tuition expenses).	We did flyers, newspaper articles, info on our internal cable TV system, and letters to all students, but it wasn’t enough.	One major challenge is that not all of our student have access to a computer and/or they are resistant to just viewing their grades on the web. They want a hard copy of their grades and they want it now. Although they can make these requests in advance, we are typically swamped with 11^th hour requests for grades when we are busy with registrations for the next term. I do believe that we have to offer the option of mailing grades if students request them. I would like to find a way to eliminate the last-minute rush, though. So if you can help us with that, or someone else gives you an idea that you could share, let me know!
Question #1	Question #2	Questions #3	Question #3a	Question #3b	Question #3c
Yes	Yes No grade mailers beginning December 2003	No	The ITS department is setting up a special e-mail address where student can request a student copy of their transcript be mailed to them in the event they can’t access their grades.	Advertising the change in the Student News which is distributed weekly from Student Services. Faculty is announcing this in their classrooms as they get closer to the end of the semester. Extending the Student Computing Center and Library computers in case students don’t have access at home to a computer and can use ours to access their grades.	We send a letter to each enrolled student at the beginning of each semester confirming with them their major and who their advisor is. These are also stamped “Do Not Forward” to verify addresses, etc. This letter also has a few statements about students not being mailed their grades beginning this December. I wish you good luck in setting this up at West Shore.