A recent survey of more than 600 University of Wisconsin faculty members reveals 90 percent of the participating faculty members agreed or strongly agreed they are satisfied with the electronic grade-submission technology utilized by the UW campus.

The Office of the Registrar and the Department of Information Technology conducted the survey.

Joanne Berg, Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Staff, explained the implementation of e-Grading at UW.

“[The Office of the Registrar] initiated it originally, and then of course all the development we’ve done in cooperation with DoIT,” Berg said. “We then formed a faculty oversight committee who worked with us in the design to tell us what they liked and didn’t like.”

Terry Ruzicka, communications coordinator for the Office of the Registrar, said e-Grading is becoming more and more popular with educational institutions nationwide.

“It’s a common practice, bringing us in line with peer institutions,” Ruzicka said.

According to Ruzicka, the electronic grading program, which posts grades overnight for students to view on their MyUW online accounts, was created to ease the process for faculty members.

“It was deliberately designed to be easy and straightforward for faculty, as well as secure and accurate,” Ruzicka said.

Ruzicka said the convenience of e-Grading has been especially beneficial for UW professors and educational staff, who no longer have to go through extensive piles of paperwork in order to get their grades in on time.

Harold Scheub, a UW professor of African languages and literature, agreed the advent of e-Grading has drastically reduced the time he spent submitting grades.

“It has surely made the things that I do when I have to turn in grades so much easier,” Scheub said. “In the past I would put all the grades down on paper and take them down to the Peterson Building, making several trips. Now it’s just wonderful: all I do is sit at my computer and send them in.”

Ruzicka said e-Grading makes grading particularly easy for professors and other faculty members because they can post grades from wherever they have Internet access. Scheub added he found it to be convenient despite the fact that he is not good with computers.

“I use a computer all the time, but I am not a sophisticated computer user,” Scheub said. “Sometimes computer changes are beyond me, but this one touches me very keenly.”

Scheub said the faculty went through training on how to use the e-Grading programming.

“In one session they really did give us insights into what we had to do,” Scheub said.

According to Ruzicka, e-Grading is also “wonderful for our students.” Once faculty members submit grades, an overnight process posts the grades on MyUW the next day.

“It has really allowed us to improve our service for students,” Ruzicka said.

Scheub said he agrees UW students benefit enormously from the process of e-Grading.

“I think that it certainly makes things easier for students as well, so that the students get their grades in a timely fashion,” Scheub said.