Each of the University’s faculty members is expected to post on BlackBoard a grade that reflects their students’ standing in all undergraduate courses by the seventh week of each regular semester to act as an “early warning system.”These grades and their posting take the place of a required eighth-week exam.

Carroll Falcon, provost and vice president of academic affairs, said the early detection system is to let students know what their academic standing is.

“It was intended primarily for University College,” Falcon said. “The University College tries to monitor this to recommend if a student should drop a class or not.”

University College is a department that is responsible for unifying the retention efforts of incoming students. They help to develop ways of enhancing a student’s first-year experiences on campus, Al Davis, dean of University College, wrote on the Nicholls Web site.

“The highest dropouts are in the freshman year,” Falcon said.

However, early warnings are not the only reason the department supports the postings.

The department found that some classes, in lieu of an eight-week exam, would offer a blanket grade, and this would discourage the act, Falcon said.

A blanket grade would offer students a specific grade for completion of all course work, instead of basing their grade off of their test grades.

Falcon said these seventh week postings have replaced the traditional eighth-week midterms.

“We certainly encourage that classes at least have an exam by that time,” Falcon said.

Some students use the grade post to know how much additional attention to devote to each class.

Katie Bergeron, mass communication senior from Thibodaux, is a student who falls into this category.

“I like to see how I’m doing in the class,” Bergeron said. “If the teachers don’t post it, I don’t know how hard I have to work for the rest of the semester.”

The semester postings are also one of several parts of the Nicholls Policy and Procedure Manual that faculty are required to follow.

When the policy was implemented, faculty was expected to use BlackBoard at a minimum to post their class syllabus.

Falcon said there are other features of BlackBoard faculty are encouraged to utilize.

Some faculty use it to post notes and PowerPoint presentations and to communicate with other faculty members, Falcon said.