Dict-Physical

Table MD_Grade

Card of table MD_Grade

Name	MD_Grade
Dimensional Type	Dimension
Comment	Letter grades, numeric equivalents, and names for the grades (e.g., CR = Credit). Includes an Unknown (?) grade. Note that the business key for this table is the letter grade and the numeric grade (stringified). Reason: An A isn't necessarily just a 4.0 at Carleton. That is, for each letter grade, there may potentially be several numerics. Also, sometimes the "numeric" equivalent to a grade is 'Unknown' or otherwise only identifiable as a string. Also note that there are many more letter grades available in this table than should actually be utilized in most reports. Grades like CI, CNT, ATT, and so on all exist, and have their purpose, but are typically transient placeholders, or reflect special circumstances (like ATT, which is a special credit type used for summer courses). Typically grades other than A, A-, B, etc. and S/CR/NC should be filtered out. This can be done directly on the MD_Grade_Letter attribute. It can also be done using the MD_Sect_Level attribute to exclude pre-matric and summer program sections. See the documentation on MD_Sect_Level, in the MD_Section dimension.

Check constraint name of the table MD_Grade

CKT_MD_GRADE

List of incoming references of the table MD_Grade

Relationship_163

MF_SectionGradeByTerm

MD_Grade_SurrogateKey

Relationship_164

MF_SectionGrade

MD_Grade_SurrogateKey

List of referencing views of the table MD_Grade

VW_GradesByInstructorWithDynamicSecurity

VW_GRADESBYINSTRUCTORWITHDYNAMICSECURITY

List of diagrams containing the table MD_Grade

StarsAcademicRecordDiagram

List of columns of the table MD_Grade

MD_Grade_SurrogateKey

<None>

numeric

MD_Grade_Letter

Letter grade, e.g., A, A-, B, B+, F, S, NC, CR, etc. Also, grades like EXT, DRP, CNT, and so on. Typically grades other than A, A-, B, etc. and S/CR/NC should be filtered out. Note that starred grades like S* indicate that the student requested that the grade (a pass/fail grade typically) be given in place of a standard A, A-, B, etc. letter grade. The un-starred S, CR, NC, etc. grades indicate that the pass/fail grade was mandated, and not requested by the student.

<None>

varchar(3)

MD_Grade_Numeric

String representing the numeric equivalent to MD_Grade_Letter (e.g., 4.0 for 'A'). Note that a given letter grade may have multiple numeric representations. E.g., an 'A' grade may go with a 4.0 numeric grade - or a 4.33 numeric grade. The pairing is not entirely consistent. Also, some grades don't have numeric equivalents at all (e.g., 'X', which means that the grade is missing, because it's late/overdue). This attribute is not a numeric, but rather a string, so that we can supply values like 'Unknown' in such cases.

Along these same lines, be careful not to use this attribute to calculate averages, sums, etc., as a fact. It is a classifier only. True grade 'facts' are available in MD_SectionGrade and MD_SectionGradeByTerm. This attribute, as noted above, may take on purely textual values like 'Unknown.'

DW_CodeDescShort

varchar(16)

MD_Grade_Desc

Description associated with MD_Grade_Letter. This description should not be used in reports. It's there more for the report writers, to help them remember what the grade letters (like ATT, CNT, CI, DRP) mean.

DW_CodeDesc

varchar(32)

MD_Grade_AuditKey

DW_AuditKey

bigint

MD_Grade_Timestamp

<None>

timestamp