Although some students might complain that the grade they receive is lower than what they deserve, a recent ANGEL glitch has caused some professors to question the accuracy of their students' grades.
A recent problem with the online course management system has caused professors to see an inaccurate representation of their students' grades when they examine them in print view. The glitch causes the system to round grades up, making the numerical value correct but the letter grade higher than it actually may be.
According to an example provided in an e-mail from ANGEL support staff forwarded to The Daily Collegian, if an A is defined as 90 percent in a course, a student with an overall percentage score of 89.7 percent will be awarded an A in the print view but a B+ elsewhere in the gradebook.
Terry O'Heron, the ANGEL program manager for Information Technology Services, said the problem was reported to the ANGEL support staff by an instructor who noticed the grade increases. As part of ANGEL's quality assurance, a tester verified the glitch, and a solution is now being looked into, O'Heron said.
"We haven't received any indications to when it will be fixed, but we have acknowledged it is a problem," O'Heron said.
The situation does not impact how student view their grades on ANGEL -- but for now, O'Heron is warning professors not to rely on the print view when looking up student grades. He said all course editors with an active gradebook were notified of the issue.
Although the mistaken grade inflation may have confused some professors, those who do not use the print view feature did not notice the error.
Michael Todd, a communications instructor, said he was unaware of the ANGEL problem because he looks at students' numerical grades, not the computerized letter version.
O'Heron said Penn State has been pleased overall with the ANGEL system, citing some slowness with course mail as the only other major grievance to date.
"The reliability of the application has been very good," O'Heron said. "Typical with any computer applications, sometimes issues go uncovered. No vendor has a 100 percent bug-free application."
