Designations of Days on Academic Calendar

On the academic calendar, Mines has the following designations for various types of days:

1. No Class Days: No academic activities or assessments
2. No Assessment Days: No proctored or high stakes assessments but classes continue as usual
3. Last Week of Class (week prior to Finals): Laboratory exams and quizzes, permitted. Classes conducted as usual.
4. Non-Restrictive Days: Operations as usual
5. No Common Exams

Definitions

• Quizzes are short, low stakes exercises worth a small percentage of the overall course grade that take place on a regular basis.
• Exams are major exercises that take place only a few times a semester.

No-Class Days

No-Class Days are days when campus is open, but no academic instruction is taking place.  Snow days are called in the event of inclement weather which would pose a danger to students and faculty in route to campus. No required class meetings, examinations or activities may take place on these days. Faculty members may hold additional office hours or provide extra help and resources, provided these activities are strictly optional. No academic activities or assessments worth any type of credit may be due on these days. This includes make up or take-home exams. No-Class Days should be treated as “holidays” and weekends with no academic participation required.

The Testing Center, although open, will not be providing any types of proctoring services for any type of assessment on these days.

No-Assessment Days

On No-Assessment Days faculty cannot schedule any kind of high-stakes assessment or assessment that requires live proctoring. Academic activities take place at the same time as other significant activities demanding a student’s attention.  The purpose of No-Assessment Days is to allow students to participate in university-sanctioned activities and/or events. Formal assessments needing live participation of any kind which will impact a student’s grade in the class should not be scheduled on these days.

Academic activities” which are permitted by this policy:

• Introducing new course content and materials during scheduled class time.
• Conducting laboratory sessions.
• Requiring homework assignments that are low stakes and do not need to be turned in during class, or in-person.

Academic activities that are explicitly disallowed by this policy include:

• Scheduling examinations or quizzes, including laboratory exams.
• Scheduling make-up exams.
• Assigning a take-home exam that is due on a No-Assessment Day.
• Assigning a major assessment (any effort worth more than 15% of the overall course grade) to be due on a No-Assessment Day. Projects with their corresponding presentations can count as one major assessment.

The Testing Center, although open, will not be providing any types of proctoring services for any type of assessment on No-Assessment Days.