ADAA, Jan. 3, 2005

	College policy on use of Graders in the context of GEO

A recent grievance process suggests that some of us in CoE may be using graders
in ways that conflict with the GEO contract.  The contract reads:

"The [GSI] title shall also be given to a graduate student who is (1) employed
on a regularly scheduled and pre-arranged basis throughout not less than one
term and (2) who (a) grades papers or examinations in a manner that requires
subjective evaluation above and beyond the mechanical or routine comparison of
submitted papers or examination with answers, responses, or elements
predetermined as correct or acceptable by another individual or method or (b)
provides tutorial instruction."

We should avoid practices that fall in the gray area of likely pro-GEO
interpretation.  It is relevant that there are no time limits on GEO
grievances.  A student may be delighted to be a non-GSI grader during his
grading service, but later decide he was exploited and file a grievance.

The College policy has four criteria.

i) Anyone assigned as a grader for a particular course is assumed to satisfy
condition (1) of the GEO paragraph cited above whether or not (s)he grades
papers every week.  This means that, to avoid classifying the grader as a GSI,
the following three criteria must be satisfied.

Non-GSI graders will not:
ii) Have grading-related contact with students in the course being graded,
iii) Provide solution sets nor alternative solutions
to those provided by the instructor, nor
iv) Assess the `closeness' of a student's solution to that of the example in a
solution set.  It is acceptable to expect graders to use their academic
training to recognize whether students' approaches are similar to those of
solutions provided by the course instructor(s).

An example of an acceptable practice would be a non-GSI grader being assigned
to course xyz, not being expected to respond to students' questions about
grading, and not being asked to provide solution sets.  The grader could be
asked to grade problems on a scale of 0-3 where 0 is no solution was
attempted; 1 is a solution was attempted but the approach used did not
recognizably conform to any in the solution set; 2 is a solution was
attempted, the approach used recognizably conformed to one in the solution
set, but the answer was not correct; and 3 is a solution was attempted, the
approach used recognizably conformed to one in the solution set, and the
answer was correct.  In this illustration, the non- GSI grader is expected to
recognize a pattern of steps that led to an acceptable solution in the
solution set, but was not asked to evaluate how close a student's approach was
to the approach given in the solution set, nor asked to recognize that an
alternative approach not presented in the solution set might have worked.  Any
other grading scheme would be acceptable if it complies with the four
criteria.