(effective Fall semester 2013)

Rationale and Benefits

Federal regulations for both financial aid and G.I. Bill benefits require NDSU to report the Last Date of Attendance (LDA) for students who failed classes due to stopped attendance.

As such, new criteria have been established for students with failing or unsatisfactory grades. It is important to collect accurate LDA information because lack of attendance beyond a given date in a semester results in a return of student aid and/or benefits to the funding source.

The new criteria are intended to streamline LDA reporting for faculty and administrative staff by collecting grade and LDA during the grade loading process, eliminating the need for follow-up requests to faculty by NDSU financial aid and VA certifying officials.

Instructors may still be contacted by Financial Aid and Scholarship for Last Date of Attendance for select course drops ('W's).

Instructions

Following are the new grade input types in the Faculty Center Grade Rosters. All failing or unsatisfactory grades will continue to appear as 'F' or 'U' on the official transcript/academic record.

*Only students with failing or unsatisfactory marks as a result of stopped attendance (FN or UN) require a LDA entry in Campus Connection. A 'Last Date of Attendance' tab is included in the Grade Roster.

When faculty attempt to approve grade rosters, a message will appear about U.S. Department of Education regulations requiring LDA with a redirect to a LDA field for all roster grades of 'FN' or 'UN'. Once the required LDAs are entered, faculty must "save" the final grade roster.

Determining Last Date of Attendance (LDA)

When determining LDA, faculty and instructional staff are to use the definition of attendance below:

• Exact date (month and day) of the student’s last known attendance/activity in a class
  and/or
• The type of last activity (i.e. physical attendance, exam, paper, etc.)

Attendance must be "academic attendance" or "attendance at an academically-related activity" including ANY of the following:

• Physical class attendance where there is direct interaction between instructor and student
• Submission of an academic assignment
• Examination, interactive tutorial, or computer-assisted instruction
• Study group
• Participation in on-line discussion board about academic matters
• Initiation of contact with instructor to ask question about academic subject
• DO NOT enter information into any of the Notes fields in the grade roster screens. Any information entered here will appear on the official transcript/record. This feature cannot be turned off during grade loading, and is used for administrative purposes only.

Note: Logging on to Blackboard to access notes or the syllabus, or contacting the instructor to ask about make-up assignments or quizzes does NOT qualify as attendance.

Thank you for your cooperation and participation in this important process!