Egracons Tool Help
Frequently asked questions
Question missing?
How do I register the first time?
How does the tool work?
Which user role do I need?
What if someone from elsewhere tries to register in the name of our institution?
Can I convert to or from the old ECTS grades?
Are there national grading tables available if my partner HEI is not (yet) using the Egracons tool?
What do I ask my ICT/student database people to do when I want them to produce grading tables?
Please send us a mail with any question that you feel needs to be included on this page.
How do I register the first time?
The Egracons Tool can only be used by official members of personnel of Higher Education Institutions that have supplied their grading tables. Users of an HEI can only register after the grading tables of their institution have been uploaded. If you want to join but your Institution is not listed among those available in the Tool then follow the joining guidelines on the website. These contain full instructions on how to supply grading tables. See also: Filling in the grading table template: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAqDzgxrBf0 . A user also has to use an official email address of the institution concerned (no gmail etc ...). Such users will be removed. Students cannot register in the tool for privacy reasons.They will be removed. they can go to the Erasmus coordinator or other responsible person for a simulation
Check the overall demonstration to find out how the tool works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpPanS-PQmg
A user of the tool can have 3 roles. Depending on the roles that a user has been assigned, different screens and/or options are available to him/her. The roles can be combined.
1. Converter
- Single grade conversion: see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBsj2zBrUwcc
- Transcript conversion: see http://youtu.be/de2jFHPMQ5Q
This is the normal role for users in an institution. They can make conversions but cannot upload tables, delte users or change their instituional info.
2. Uploader : see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3H8o35HjdQ
An Uploader uploads a new version of the grading tables as they become available. This should be done at least annually, so that the latest staistics are always available. The old tables can be kept in the tool for later use. Only one table can be active at any one time (normally the currrent one). The tool does some verification of the tables and will indicate in red the errors it finds.
3. Local Administrator
A local administrator can activate, manage (assign roles) and delete users from his/her own institute and can change the info on the HEI in the tool. The local administrator is assigned after the grading tables have been uploaded for the first time. The activity logs of the HEI can also be consulted.
A local administrator cannot add users. Each user has to register and is then activated by the local administrator. The local administrator also assigns the roles. If no special request is made a user will be given the role of Converter. An adlministrator should only accept users from their own institution using an official email address from the institution. Do not accept students either so check the personnel lists each time a person from your institution registers.
What if someone from elsewhere tries to register in the name of our institution?
Sometimes members of personnel from another university (or students) try to register using the name of another university. You can see this from the email address they use. This is usually done because their own institution is not included in the tool yet. Local administrators should never activate such users and send the activation mail they receive to the Egracons team (valere.meus@ugent.be). Also students are not allowed to use the tool. They should go to their IRO/Erasmus coordinator in their institution if they want to see a simulation.
Can I convert to or from the old ECTS grades?
The old ECTS grades A-E have been abandoned in ECTS. They have now been replaced by comparing grading tables from both the host and the home university. The Tool does not provide conversion from these grades. However, if the ECTS grades have been established on the basis of frequency distribution figures (10% 25% 30% 25% 10%) you can make a manual conversion using your or the host institution's grading tables. Otherwise conversion is not possible. But if there are frequency distribution tables for the ECTS Grades, it requires only a small effort to make full grading tables that can be uploaded in the Egracons Tool.
Are there national grading tables available if my partner HEI is not (yet) using the Egracons tool?
No conveersions are possible at the moment if the grading tables of one of the 2 partners involved are missing. We may combine the tables of sveral institutions and in this way create 'national' grading tables, but this is not possible at the moment. It is foreseen for the future. A condition for this is that a statistically relevant number of HEIs of a country have to be be represented in the tool anyway. For most countries this is not yet the case.
What do I ask my ICT/student database people to do when I want them to produce grading tables?
In principle the production of grading tables is not an ICT task in itself. It involves no programming or adjustment of software. It involves setting up an independent query on the student database in which the student grades are kept. This is usually the student information system database. You need to ask someone who has access tho this database and can perform a query on it. Such a query does not take longer to set up than maximum 2 hours for someone who know how to make queries. The query in itself is similar to other queries that are undoubtedly performed on the same database, such as how many students have registered for each degree in a fuculty over the last 2 years, or how many students were awarded a degree last year within the humanities. Ideally the ISCED codes should alreday be present in the database, but they can also be merged in the Egracons Template Excel file later on.
A full description on how to produce grading tables (including a representation in an algorithm) can be found in the instructions on the page on grading tables. The query has to be exported and then the data can be copied and pasted (or entered manually) in the Excel templates provided by Egracons. Once the query has been created it can be easily used again later on for the annual updates of the grading tables.
For the technical description click here
