After a student has submitted their final Signature Work products – the Scholarly Paper or Creative/Design Product + Explanatory Text – these will be passed on to a Second Reader, a faculty member in a field broadly related to the student’s SW project. Second Readers are assigned by the division chairs in consultation with the OSW, not chosen by the student. Second Readers are there to ensure academic standards; they are not responsible for SW grades, which are entirely up to the mentor (barring late penalties).
After receiving SW products, the Second Reader will have two weeks to evaluate and comment on the products, either via liner notes or one final end note. Second Readers are encouraged to focus on major errors/omissions/etc. Second Readers will judge SW products as falling into one of three categories:
- Adequate to minimal academic standards and worthy of Distinction (see Graduation with Signature Work Distinction in the Policies section)
- Adequate to minimal academic standards
- Inadequate to minimal academic standards
Students whose work is judged Adequate need do nothing further. They will receive the Second Reader’s comments for their own benefit, but are not required to resubmit. (Grades cannot be improved by resubmitting at this point.)
Students whose work is judged Inadequate have a further two weeks to make the edits required by the Second Reader. When they resubmit their work, the Second Reader will once again judge it Adequate or Inadequate. (Grades cannot be improved by resubmitting at this point either.)
If the student’s work is judged to still be Inadequate after resubmission, or if the student did not resubmit work by the resubmission deadline, it will be evaluated by a panel convened and headed by the VCAA. That panel may include the mentor and second reader, division chairs, major conveners, Director of Signature Work, etc. If that panel agrees with the judgment that the submitted work does not meet minimum academic standards, it is empowered to set the student’s CAPSTONE 496 grade to an F, necessitating that the student retake it the following term.
