UH grades to be posted online

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

Beginning Jan. 3, there will be no need to haunt the mailbox for your report card if you're a University of Hawai'i-Manoa student. On that day, there will be no more snail mail. Fall semester grades will be available online.

Online grade accessibility is part of a nationwide trend, and the change will save as much as $30,000 a semester for the Manoa campus, according to Karl Kim, interim vice chancellor for academic affairs. That was the approximate cost in postage, paper and staff time to mail grades to 18,000 students.

And it means students will get grades much faster.

"In the past we've had some problems in that the mail takes some time to reach the students," Kim said. "This way there's instantaneous notification. I think we're better served."

Kim said grades are already recorded electronically and it will be simple to make them available to students on the Web. For several years grades have also been available on the phone, through the PA'E — Phone Accessible Enrollment — system. They will continue to be available that way.

For online accessibility there will be safeguards so others can't hack into someone else's grades, he said. Student identification numbers will be needed, and students will go through a step-by-step process to access their grades.

The community colleges are still looking at whether they also can offer the same service. Registrars will meet Monday to consider options, said Ralph Ohara, director of student affairs for the community college system.

"The capability of doing the online reporting to students will be there," Ohara said. "The details need to be worked out, but there's no decision yet."

Each campus may also choose to make a different decision, Ohara said.

"One of the considerations is to make them available online, but also mail out hard copies," he said. "My guess is that each of the colleges will make that decision on their own. After the registrars meet they'll be taking it back to the campuses to confer with the deans of student services."

Once decisions are made, students will be notified and instructed on how to obtain grades from the Web, if the individual colleges decide this is how they wish to confer report cards, he said.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.