Two separate data files must be reported in the formats described below.

" COURSES " …… Core Course Database

The intent of this project is to report average performance of students from each Indiana high school on selected freshmen college courses in the following 4 disciplines plus any remedial courses: Mathematics, English, Science, Social Science (and remedial courses of all types). To accomplish this, each college must identify which courses they choose to report and complete a database record describing each course so designated. It is expected that each college will identify at least one course in each of the four disciplines, although in some instances more than one course will be necessary to adequately describe freshmen performance in that discipline. Each course reported must have a corresponding descriptive record in the "Core Course Database".

Supplemental instructions and guidance in designating courses are enclosed to assist institutions in determining which courses should be reported. However, information describing each course must be reported in the following format:

Format: fixed-length record format, comma delimited (.csv), excel (.xls) or Access format (.mdb):

** PLEASE NOTE: We are not using the Course Maintenance website this year as we need to start with a fresh set of courses.  The courses database has grown to contain too many courses that have changed or no longer offered.  Insted of trying to clean this information out, we prefer to start from scratch.  Please provide a clean file for courses based on the file layout below.  You may still visit the Course Maintenance website to review which courses were submitted in the past:  http://www.gradereport.org/courses

NOTE: We also have at this website, an area to update the contact information for the "General Course Description" information.  Each course category (English, math, social science and science) has a general description with a contact person for each.  Please visit the link above (or go direct at General Course Descriptions).

" GRADES " …… Grade Reporting Database

All college grades earned by entering Freshmen in each of the reported courses above must be entered into a data file composed of one record per course grade per Hoosier freshmen entering in academic year 2009-10. Consequently, students receiving grades in more than one of the courses designated above will have multiple records in the database. Course grades must be entered exactly as one of the letter grades described below (please adjust each grade in your grading scale to the most representative letter grade option listed below).

Other Field values must correspond exactly to the course abbreviated description (i.e. "Courses" database) and to corresponding fields in the 2009-10 SIS database reported annually to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education or ICI. High School Codes entered must be identical to CEEB codes used in the Indiana Commission for Higher Education SIS database. Campus codes and the year field must be identical to their respective fields used in the Indiana Commission for Higher Education SIS database (i.e. year is fixed as 0910).

Student Identifiers can be any ID (real or fictitious) useful in linking the student’s high school code with their course grades. However we have suggested to most colleges that the SIS identifier (i.e. SISID) would be the easiest value to use, particularly when fields from the SIS data are available to directly link to grade rosters. Although no student identifier (real or fictitious) will be used in the production of the final grade reports provided to high schools, an institution is at liberty to scramble any "IDs" in the GRADES database prior to shipping the file provided that each student have one unique ID. The format for the GRADES datafile is described below:

Format: fixed-length record format, comma delimited (.csv), excel (.xls) or Access format (.mdb):

Each institution is encouraged to construct these data files in the manner best suited for their situation.

For further assistance,
please e-mail Patrick Alles at patrick@icindiana.org
or call (317) 236-6085

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SELECTING COURSES FOR THE GRADE REPORT

When selecting which courses to include in the report for your college or university, please keep in mind the following criteria:

• We need grades from those courses which will give us the bulk of Indiana students who were freshmen during the 2009-10 school year, and who came straight to your institution from high school. We do not need to find a grade for every eligible student, so we do not need grades from courses taken by only one or two advanced students.

• We need grades from courses commonly taken by freshman students in five categories: English, Mathematics, Science, Social Science, and Remedial.

• Categories may be interpreted broadly to cover the bulk of freshman students in each subject area. English can include either literature or composition courses, or both. Science can include physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Social Science can include history, economics, sociology, political science, etc.

• For the Remedial category, courses in any subject area may be included, as long as the work in the course is below the difficulty expected at the college level. Remedial courses should be used ONLY in the Remedial category. Do not put a Remedial course in the English, Mathematics, Science, or Social Science categories.

• Selected courses need not all be on the same level. We are not trying to compare courses from different colleges and universities. For example, you can include in the Mathematics category math classes of varying difficulty, as long as they are commonly taken by freshman students, and are not remedial courses.