NOTE: Transcript averaging requires the use of numeric marks. Numeric grades are not supported in Aeries for California college reporting such as the UC or CSU Eligibility reports or A-G GPA computation. Do not use numeric marks until you have verified that students will be able to submit their transcripts to the California colleges without issue. 


The Transcript page has a feature to calculate and display an average mark field. The user can match up like transcript records with the same year and average the marks to determine credit completion for the course. When transcript records are mass added, such as during the Copy Grades to Transcripts process, the average mark fields and completed credits are calculated automatically. The single-column enhanced transcript will also display the average mark. 


NOTE: When the Attendance Based Grade Reporting and Transcript Averaging features are both being used, any transcript records identified as losing credit due to Attendance Based Grading (HIS.ABG = 'Y') will not have their Credits Completed updated when a transcript record is added or updated that would bring the average mark above 70%. 





Security

Permissions are set up in the Security node of the navigation. Please see the Security article for more detailed information on how to set up permissions for users and groups.


Users that will be adjusting the options in the District Settings need to be an Admin user type. 


Users with Update permission to Grade Reporting Options (GRO) will have the ability to enable or disable the school option to Allow Numeric Marks. We also recommend that these users have full rights to the Update Valid Marks (GRC).



Users that will need to add or update transcript records will need full permission to the Transcripts (HIS) area.



On the Grades page, the Copy to Transcript button will be available if users or teachers have Insert permission to the Transcripts (HIS) area. On the Classes and Course Attendance pages, the Issue Credit button will be available if a user or teacher has Insert permission to the Grades (GRD) area. Additionally, the button will be available for teachers only during open grading windows and only for their own students. 



Set Up - District Settings and Grade Reporting Options

There are several requirements that need to be met before transcript averaging can be performed. 

  • The first requirement is that the district needs to allow the use numeric marks and the option to average final marks needs to be turned on. This is done in District Settings and will make the average mark available to all secondary schools that use numeric grade reporting marks. 
    • Go to District Settings in the navigation. 
    • Under the Grade Reporting Settings area select the "Allow the use of numeric marks ..." option. Then select the "Average final marks of like courses within the same school year on the transcript"  option.
    • Select one or more Course fields that will be used to identify which transcript records should be averaged together.  
    • Click on Save to save the changes.


  • Secondary schools that wish to use average marks on the transcript will need to use numeric marks when grade reporting. This can be turned on in Grade Reporting Options
    • Log into a school and go to Grade Reporting Options in the navigation
    • Select Yes for the "Allow Numeric Marks (0-100)?"  Take special note of the information that is displayed when this option is selected. All existing character marks will be deleted including A-F, P, CR, NC, NM, X, etc. Any character marks that should remain (such as P, CR, X, W)  will need to be re-added.
    • Click on Save to save the changes.




NOTE: Numeric grades are not supported in Aeries for California college reporting such as the UC or CSU Eligibility reports or A-G GPA computation. Do not use numeric marks until you have verified that students will be able to submit their transcripts to the California colleges without issue.



Once these options have been turned on the Avg Mark - Average Mark column  will appear on the Transcripts page and on the single-column enhanced transcript. The Average Mark (HIS.AMK) field can be hand-entered by editing the transcript record, or it can be mass populated when new transcript records are mass added to transcripts (HIS) through several processes, such as the Copy Grades to Transcripts function. 




Conditions for Mark Averaging to Occur

In order for the system to calculate the average mark for two or more transcript records several conditions need to be met:

  • The School Year (HIS.YR) for the transcript records needs to be the same.
  • The School Taken (HIS.ST) for the transcript records needs to be a school within the school district.  School Taken (HIS.ST) fields < 1000 are considered schools within the same district. 
  • The Repeat Tag (HIS.RT) for the transcript records must be blank or a value that counts for credits ( '', 3 or B). Repeat-tagged courses that do not take into account completed credits cannot be averaged.
  • The Marks (HIS.MK)  for the transcript records must be numeric. Transcript records with non-numeric marks cannot be averaged.
  • The Course fields selected in the District Settings will be used to identify the transcript records that will be averaged together.


    Note: When you are populating transcripts from another district, those marks are not averaged and you will see this message:



Adding a New Transcript Record

Once transcript averaging is set up at a school every time a new transcript record is added the system will automatically check for other transcript records to average the new mark with. The system will follow the rules explained in the Conditions for Mark Averaging to Occur section of this article. This will occur when:

  • a user hand-enters a new transcript record
  • Copy Grades to Transcripts process
  • Grades page - Copy to Transcript button
  • Course Attendance page - Issue Credit button 
  • Classes page - Issue Credit button

Please see the Copying Grades and Credits to Transcripts for Individual Students article for more information about the Copy to Transcript and Issue Credit features.



Editing Existing Transcript Records for Mark Averaging

Users can edit existing transcript records to choose like courses to average with, or they can remove or change the average mark between two or more transcript records.


In the below example a student received a 65 in the term 1 Adv Algebra CP course which provided 0.00 credits towards subject completion, and the student received a 74 in the term 2 Adv Algebra CP course. The average of these 2 grades is a 70 which would provide full credit subject completion for each term.



  • Click on the Edit icon for one of the Adv Algebra CP transcript records  


  • Click on the Average Mark link icon to display a pop up listing the other transcript record(s) that this record could be averaged with


  • Select the transcript record(s) that you wish to average together and then click on the transcript Save icon. The average will be automatically calculated. 


The average mark for the Adv Algebra CP transcript records is 70 which provides credit completion for both transcript records.




Unlinking Transcript Records for Mark Averaging

In some cases there may be a need to remove the linking between two or more transcript records that have a calculated average mark. 


One method to unlink two or more transcript records that have been averaged is to delete the value in the Average Mark field. 

After clicking on the Save icon for the transcript record a message will display informing you that changing this value will reset the mark averaging link. Click on OK to continue or Cancel to revert back. Click on the Save icon for the transcript record to save the changes. NOTE: removing the value in the Average Mark field will not automatically recalculate the Average Mark for the remaining records that were linked. The other records will need to have their Average Mark value recalculated.


Another method to unlink two or more transcript records is to de-select the transcript record(s) to average with in the Average Mark link pop-up


A message will display asking if you wish to change the existing mark averaging group. Select OK to continue or Cancel to revert back. Click on the Save icon for the transcript record to save the changes.