What are EASE Reports?
EASE (Enhancing Academic Success Early) Reports are a great way to provide students- and their advisors- feedback on how they are doing in your class. Instructors post students’ current grades, attendance and engagement, and comments. The instructor chooses if the information is sent just to the advisors or to both students and advisors. I complete the reports during the third week, fourth week (prior to the last day to drop with a refund), halfway through the semester (before the last day to drop without a grade reported), and toward the end of the semester.
How are EASE Reports Completed?
EASE reports are completed on the Registrar’s website. There are two options for posting them: entering grades and comments individually for each student in an online form or uploading a file. Uploading a file is the most efficient way to provide feedback for large classes because information can be quickly copied and pasted for multiple students. This way, you can provide feedback to every student. The tutorial below describes 1) how to download a student list EASE report template from the Registrar’s website, 2) how to export grades from D2L, 3) how to combine the student list file and the D2L file, 4) tips and tricks to consider while working on the file, and 5) how to edit and upload the final file for an EASE Report upload to the registrar’s website.
Notes to Consider
Make sure to upload it as a CSV.
D2L calculates the final grade. Just note that if you have any drops already set up in your gradebook, that it will adjust the grade for those drops. Because of this, when I complete reports at the beginning of the semester, I manually calculate the grade so that drops are not set up. This way, they have a more accurate reflection of how they are doing in the course. Then I add a comment to anyone with a grade below 4.0 that their grade on D2L may be higher than what is reported here because the lowest grade for select assignments is dropped.
In the video, I mentioned an equation that I use to check that the D2L and the EASE student list files match. Make sure to delete the demo students from the D2L list and put them both in order by NetID/email. Here is the equation: =if(G2=O2,1) You may need to change “G” and “O” depending on your columns. In my example, the MSU Net ID is in the G column of the file and the Email from D2L is in the O column of the file.
I briefly went over the different columns in the EASE report file. Here is a description of each one (do not change the heading of any of the columns):
- The first several columns contain information that you do not change:
- Term_Code: semester roster
- Subj_Code: the subject of your course
- Crse_Code: the course code
- Sctn_Code: the section number
- Student_ID: students’ PIDs
- Student_Name: last name, first name of each student
- MSUNet_ID: The student’s Net_ID; the first part of their email address
- Require: Does the student require an EASE report? There will be a “yes” for each student that requires an EASE report and nothing entered for those that do not. Try to complete a report for more than just those that require one.
- You enter information for the next several columns:
- Grade: Enter a grade for each student (0, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4). One easy way to calculate this is to add a percentage grade column from D2L and then put it in order of percentage (make sure to delete this extra column before uploading the file).
- Attendance: enter “yes,” “intermittent,” or “no.” If needed, add any clarifications to the comments column.
- Engagement: enter “yes,” “intermittent,” or “no.” If needed, add any clarifications to the comments column.
- MeasuresDoNotApply: enter “yes” if the measures “grade,” “attendance,” and “engagement” do not apply to your course or for that student.
- Comments: This is where you type useful feedback to the student’s advisor and the student, if applicable. Try to be as specific as possible. Consider having a separate document of feedback that you can copy and paste from each semester.
- ShareComments: Enter “yes” if you want students to also see the comments that you provided.
Additional information is provided on the EASE report file upload page on the registrar’s website.