AcSIR GUIDELINES
(adapted from the AcSIR handbook 2015)
Examination & Evaluation procedures for Course work
Continuous evaluation procedure will be followed through-out the semester through class test, quiz, assignment, seminar/presentation on special topic, midterm and end term examinations etc.
End semester examination shall have maximum weightage of 40%.
Depending on the nature of the subject, faculties may opt for open or close book examination.
For laboratory courses, the candidates shall have to submit laboratory reports to the course coordinator. Depending on nature of the laboratory work, the coordinator can opt for a viva-voce at the end.
The grading system to be followed for course work is illustrated below: Letter grades will be awarded for courses at the 100-300 levels and for all mandatory courses
i) The courses in level 400 (i.e. Review Article, Research Proposal and CSIR-800 Project) shall be awarded "S" (Satisfactory) or "X" (Unsatisfactory).
ii) Any other courses that are completed by the students may be taken as Audit Courses.
This decision has to be made by the student and instructor at the beginning of the semester within a maximum period of four weeks from the start
of the semester.
iii) SGPA and CGPA calculation will include all courses that are taken and graded, irrespective of whether those are above the minimum requirement or not.
5. Timeline for course completion (especially 400-level courses of the PhD program)
Review submission must be completed before Comprehensive examination in addition to the 12 credit requirement from coursework. Proposal writing and CSIR-800 should be completed before DACIII.
* “I” grade shall be given to students who have (a) not attended Classes; and/or (b) not been evaluated.
This implies repeating the full course and take the examination so that it could be considered towards his/her grade calculation.
Where Ci represents credit points and Gi represents grade points. Based on the philosophy, letter grade does not allow the fractions. The grades have to be within the ranges of A+, A, B+, B, C+ in order to pass the course. Please note that at AcSIR “C” is a fail grade. Therefore, while mapping the absolute marks onto the letter grades the investigator in-charge has to be and appearing in the examination so that it could be considered towards final grade calculation.
sure what grade he wants to award. One student may get 55 or 58 (out of 100) as his/ her actual marks, but the onus is on the Instructor to declare whether the candidate is C+ or C. The Instructor has the liberty to declare 58 as C+ and he has to be convinced that the candidate deserves a C+ grade. Likewise, the investigator in-charge has to assign A+, A etc based on the performance of the students in the course. Ideally, the instructor has to draw a histogram based on the performance (absolute marks) of the students in the course. Then he has to decide what should be the minimum pass mark for that course. He/ she has to then decide on a range (say minimum + X marks, X being 6 or 7 or 8 marks) and assign that range as C+, the immediate upper range (again he/ she has to decide the range based on the trend of the histogram) should be assigned a letter grade of B and so on. If the instructor sees that nobody is truly outstanding in the histogram, he need not even award A+ in that course for that particular batch of students. The Instructor is free to choose the minimum pass marks (and hence the pass grade is mapped there) depending on the standard of the examinations/ assignments and the standard of performance of the students in the course.
The numerical interpretation of the letter grade has only relation to the calculation of SGPA and CGPA. But letter grade cannot be interpreted as a fractional number. For example, if an Instructor has awarded B+ grade to somebody, then the student earns full 8.0 grade point on that course. The grade point cannot be 8.2 or 7.8. The grade point will be multiplied by the corresponding credit of the course and then SGPA or CGPA will be calculated based on the formula given above.
Whenever a large number of student's grades in a course fall on either extreme of spectrum, they shall be discussed/reviewed by the concerned course instructor and Lab Coordinator in consultation with the Lab Director.
A student needs to have a SGPA of over 6.0 in each semester and a CGPA of over 6.5 from second semester onward for continuation. Minimum grade point to be earned to pass any subject is 6.0.
The SGPA and CGPA shall be calculated to two decimal places.
The course coordinator shall submit the grades of the students as per the academic
calendar.
Determination of Distinction and First Class Grade
Distinction ≥ 8.00 CGPA
First Class ≥ 7.00 CGPA
Pass Marks ≥ 6.50 CGPA
Conducting “Re-test”:
Re-test can be taken in two situations:
For passing a course i.e. course grade is < 6.00 ('C' or 'F' grade, but not 'I' grade).
For improvement in SGPA/CGPA
The re-test can be taken without any fee involvement and it will be conducted immediately after the grades are finalized and before the start of the next academic session.
Final grades obtained after taking re-test shall only be mentioned on the grade card.