Dakar American University of Science & Technology

Dakar / Somone
Educating the next generation of Engineers, Inventors, and Innovators
www.daust.org / [email protected] / +221 33 898 8713 / +221 77 162 6223

DAUST GRADING SYSTEM

STUDENT’S MANUAL

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Version June 2023
 1. Introduction :
In both the content and the approach, DAUST has adopted the American-style of education based on
“Learning by Doing”. Moreover, DAUST is in line with the LMD system that is the established norm in
Senegalese Higher Education. The current DAUST Teaching Standard is a mix of those two systems.
The goal of this document is to provide to students some key information that help to understand the grading
system used at DAUT. More specifically, students will know how course grades are calculated and how
GPAs and transcripts are set.
DAUST provides a 5-year Engineering degree through a 2-year Preparatory Cycle, and a 3-year
specialization through 3 majors: Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering.
Below is a representation of DAUST curriculum:

Figure 1 : DAUST Curriculum

2. DAUST Assessment Activities:

DAUST highly recommends diversifying the assessment activities through the semester. Depending on the
courses, these assessment activities are attendance, quizzes, lab sessions, presentations, projects, exams,
homework, assignments, report etc. Different types of assessments help instructors to evaluate students’
progress more accurately. It allows students to demonstrate skills learnt in different ways, thus reducing the
risk that anyone may be disadvantaged by the extensive use of a particular form of assessment. In this sense,
diversification of assessment methods facilitates a more inclusive approach to assessment design.
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 3. Grading Systems

a. Course Credit hour

A credit hour is a way of measuring how much credit a student receives for attending and validating a course
during a semester. According to the LMD system (for License – Master – Doctorat), a credit hour is calculated
from two categories:
The contact hours (CH): all the time of class activities (classroom, laboratories, site visits, seminars,
etc) spent by the students;
The Student Work Load (SWL): Any time spent in leaning activities other than the contact hours
(review of the course materials, recitation preparation, readings, writing reports, presentation rehearsal, etc).
1 Credit hour equals 20 hours (dispatch between some CH and SWL hours).
Each course is associated with a certain number of hours per semester. For example: Physics I with Lab
generally is 7 credit hours (7*20 hours = 140 hours).
The total credit hour per semester must be 30 credits or 60 credits annually.
To validate the all five years, students must get 300 credits.

b. Course Grading
The grading at DAUST is based on the American grading system. That grading system is based on numerical
and letter grades. The numerical grades varying from 0 to 100 % are used to grade the activities such as
assignments or exams.
The letter grading uses five letters broken down into a plus (+) or a minus (-) as follows: A+, A, A-; B+, B,
B-; C+, C, C-; D+, D, D- and F.
At the end of the semester, the numerical grade obtained by a student for a course will be converted into letter
grade based on the conversion table seen in the figure 2.
It is important to note that the minimum passing grade to validate a course and earn credits is C or
74%. If the letter grade is "C-" or lower, the student will not receive credits for that course.

c. Final Exam Sessions

A final exam is the last course activity organized at the end of the semester (for some courses a final project
is required) to assess students about all subjects covered. DAUST organizes two final exams under these
conditions:
 All students are required to take the first session of the final exam.
 A second session of the final exam or a make-up exam of the final exam is organized for students
who did not validate the course with a minimum letter of C (or 74%).

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  The make-up exam only replaces the first session of the final exam while the grades of the other
activities (assignments, midterm exams etc) remain unchanged.
 In some cases, a make-up of the final exam will not help to validate the course. Thus, a definite failure
is considered and no make-up exam will be planned for the students.
 The second session of the final exam is organized at least two weeks after the first session of the final
exam.

Figure 2 : Grading system

4. Course grade Calculation

The course grade is based on the grade of each activity composing that course. Each activity is associated
with a certain coefficient or percentage weight that defines its part for the course grade. The course syllabus
available in Mycourses or presented by instructors shows the percentage weight of each activity. The course
final grade is calculating by summing the product of the grade activity and its associated percentage weight.
For example in Physics I with Lab, the table below shows how to calculate the course grade.

Midterm Final Final grade Final grade

Activities Attendance Homework Lab
Exam exam (%) (Letter)
Percentage
10% 15% 20% 20% 35%
Weight (%)
Student
100% 93% 99% 87% 98%
Grades
10%*100% 15%*93% 20%*99% 20%*87% 35%*98% 10%+14%+19.7%
Grades (%) A
=10% =14% =19.7% =17.4% =34.3% +17.4%+34.3% = 95.4%
Table 1: Course Grade Calculation

The platform Mycourses platform automatically calculates the course grade.

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 5. Grade Point Average:
A Grade Point Average (GPA) is an average of all the grade points you have earned during a semester after
following and validating a course. The GPA ranges from 0.0 to 4.00 and is used to determine whether a
student meet the standards and expectations set by the university.

a. How important is GPA?

The maximum GPA is 4.00 and students must work to keep the highest GPA possible. Having and
maintaining high GPA is relevant for several reasons:
 If you are receiving a scholarship you usually have to maintain a minimum GPA to keep it.
 If you plan to apply for an admission to another university, you will be more likely to be accepted with
a high GPA, usually more than 3.0.
 If you are looking for a job, some employers may ask for a transcript to choose the candidates with the
highest GPA.
 You can be granted a prestigious award for academic excellence such as the Dean’s and President’s lists.
At DAUST, students who achieve a GPA between 3.50 and 3.89 are placed on the Dean’s list while
those who have a GPA of 3.90 or greater are placed on the President’s list.

b. How to calculate the GPA?

1- Semester GPA
You can calculate your semester GPA if you know:
 The letter grade you earned in each of the courses you are taking
 The number of credits each course is worth (set by the Academic Affairs)
 The number of points that correspond to each letter grade. Each letter grade is assigned a point value
as seen in the table below.

Letter Grade A+ A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D+ D D- F

Point Value 4 4 3.67 3.33 3 2.67 2.33 2 1.67 1.33 1 0.67 0

Table 2: Point Values of letter grades

To calculate a GPA, let’s say that a student is enrolled in five courses during a semester. The table below
shows these courses, the grades earned by the student and the credit associated to each course (these are set
by the Academic Affairs). Notice that the student took and validate all 30 credits which is the Total semester
credits earned.

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Calculations:
 Calculate the Points Earned (Column 4) for each course = 𝐶𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡 (𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑛 2) ∗ 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 (𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑛 3)
 Calculate the 𝐒𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 = 𝑆𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒
 For this example, it is 94 points.
Semester total points earned
 Calculate the Semester GPA = = 3.12
𝑆𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑

The platform MyDAUST automatically calculates the GPA. However, the columns 3 and 4 are not shown in
a transcript.

Fall Semester 2019

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4
Course ID Course Title Grades Credits Points Value Points Earned
CHEM 110 General Chemistry A 6 4.00 24
MATH 110 Differential & Integral Calculus I C 6 2.00 12
ENGL 110 English Composition I B+ 4 3.33 13
PHYS 110 Physics I with Lab B 7 3.00 21
ENGR 110 Design Project I B+ 7 3.33 21
Semester total credits earned 30
Semester total points earned 94

Semester GPA 3.12

Table 3: Semester GPA Calculation

2- Cumulative GPA
Cumulative GPA refers to the average of all of your semester GPAs. It is calculated as follows:

𝑆𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑠emesters total points earned

𝐶𝑢𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝐺𝑃𝐴 =
𝑆𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑

Direction des Etudes

Dr. Mamadou D. Diop
June 2023