Timely Grading, Monitoring, and Feedback Policy

Custodian of Policy: Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs

Relevant Policy: CFR Title 34.B.VI.600.2 (https://www.ecfr.gov/) and HLC Glossary

Effective Date: Fall 2026

Last Review: Fall 2025

Next Review: Fall 2032

Rationale and Scope

Minnesota State University Moorhead takes pride in providing quality instruction and support of students. A key part of that quality instruction is providing students with timely feedback, as feedback on their submitted assignments is a key part in deepening their understanding and guiding them through new material, and helps students improve as the course progresses. This policy sets minimum standards for early feedback to students as well as timely grading of assessed activities in the class.

One goal of this policy is to ensure that students know how they are doing in a class early enough that, if needed, they can adjust their out-of-class schedules, seek help, or make other changes to improve their understanding of the material while there is still enough time in the course for those adjustments to positively affect their success in the course.

Policy

Early Feedback

Faculty members teaching at Minnesota State Moorhead will provide feedback on student work at least once prior to the first Early Alert (at five weeks into the course) for a full-term course (15-16 weeks). In shorter sessions, feedback will be provided in a timeframe that is consistent with this guideline. For example, for an eight-week course, feedback will be provided at least once in the first 2.5 weeks. Depending on the nature of the course, this may take the form of a graded homework assignment, quiz, paper, etc., and the feedback must be related to the academic content of the course and provided on an individual basis to each student in the class. Feedback that is entirely qualitative in nature and addresses the student’s understanding of the material presented is sufficient, as long as the student can use that feedback to know how they are doing in the class.

Timely grading

The general goal for timely feedback on assessed activities at Minnesota State Moorhead is that, whenever possible, feedback on prior submissions happens earlier enough that students can incorporate the feedback that they receive on earlier assignments into their most recent work.

Monitoring of student academic engagement and success

Faculty are responsible for monitoring their students’ academic engagement and success, and for promptly and proactively engaging in substantive interaction with a student when needed on the basis of such monitoring or when requested by the student. This applies to all courses, regardless of modality or length of the session.

Providing students with up-to-date access to their grades through an online gradebook or other means is a key part of the monitoring expected of faculty members, but it is only one part. Faculty must reach out to students when needed. The Early Alert checks for full-term courses can be used as part of this monitoring, but the monitoring must continue throughout the course. It also must happen in short-term courses such as eight-week courses offered during the academic year, winter session courses, or summer courses where the Early Alert checks are not applicable.

As a particular example, if an online, asynchronous course is opened entirely at the beginning of the term, so that the student can choose to complete the course in the first few weeks of the semester even though doing so is not required or expected, the faculty member must be keeping up with the student on an individual basis to monitor their progress.