On Grading at a Danish University

This page focuses on the grading scale. There is of course also a lot to be said about practical preparations before an exam, how to conduct an oral exam or a defense, how to design a written exam set, etc. You will have to seek information about that elsewhere.

As a newcomer to the Danish university system, you may be surprised by how regulated the course system and grading process is. This page is an attempt to give you a brief introduction to hopefully avoid too major surprises and resulting problems.

First note that course descriptions are quite structured and detailed. Among other things, they contain a description of the learning objectives of the course. Your grade should be given based on the degree of fulfillment of the learning objectives. Note that this means that grades are absolute; not relative. So you are not supposed to grade on a curve or reserve a limited number of any particular grade.

The ministerial order on the grading scale gives textual descriptions of the different grades to help you choose the right one. The grades are

Grade	Description
12	For an excellent performance displaying a high level of command of all aspects of the relevant material, with no or only a few minor weaknesses.
10	For a very good performance displaying a high level of command of most aspects of the relevant material, with only minor weaknesses.
7	For a good performance displaying good command of the relevant material but also some weaknesses.
4	For a fair performance displaying some command of the relevant material but also some major weaknesses.
02	For a performance meeting only the minimum requirements for acceptance.
00	For a performance which does not meet the minimum requirements for acceptance.
-3	For a performance which is unacceptable in all aspects.

The above is the official English translation. However, as with all our legislation, if there are discrepancies, it is the Danish version that counts. I am mentioning this in particular because I think the translation of the text for the grade -3 is incorrect. Removing "in all aspects" results in a more correct translation. Using the one in the table makes it next to impossible ever to use the grade. See my recommendations below.

If you are familiar with the scale decided upon by the EU, the following table gives the translation.

Danish Scale	ECTS Scale
12	A
10	B
7	C
4	D
02	E
00	Fx
-3	F

On the use of -3 versus 00

Possibly due the incorrect translation mentioned above and possibly because both grades are non-passing and it feels unpleasant to be unnecessarily harsh, many examiners tend to basically not use -3 unless the student leaves the exam immediately or turns in blank. I have often heard the statement: "The student said something right so we cannot give -3". There is no foundation for that statement in the Danish version of the ministerial order. My personal opinion is that 00 should be used to indicate that the student was relatively close to passing. In this way, I think the students are better advised by the grade they get.

Written exams

In mathematics and computer science, there is a long tradition for giving points or percentages when grading written exam sets. Different traditions exist for translating points into grades. I like the following translation table.

Percentage	Grade
95	12
82.5	10
67.5	7
55	4
50	02
35	00
0	-3

My justification for this suggestion is the following:

• There is a very long tradition, going back decades and having survived a number of grading scale reforms, that obtaining 50% of the points in an exam set is the requirement to pass.
• The division between -3 and 00 is somewhat arbitrary, but, as explained above, I think 00 should indicate that the student is close to passing. Depending on the exam set, I have generally used some number between 33 and 40.
• The grading scale was designed with the intention that over many years and many students, on average the distribution of the passing grades 02, 4, 7, 10, and 12 should be 10, 25, 30, 25, and 10 percent. The scale above reflects that.

However, always remember that percentages and a conversion table is a support tool. In a particular case, where some questions are very difficult and some very easy, other conversions may be more reasonable. Always remember that the grade should, also for written exams, assess the degree of fulfillment of learning objectives.

Another reason for adjustments could be that you realized you made a mistake in your design of the exam set. I believe that officially, this is not an option, and the situation is not described in the ministerial order.

Why is everything so weird?

At least two things are weird. First, we write 00 and 02, and, in fact, due to this, many people also say 00 and 02. This comes from the instructions as to how a protocol should be filled in. Since 0 and 2 could easily be changed to 10 and 12, respectively, you are supposed to prefix those grades with a zero in the official forms. The grades really are just 0 and 2.

The numbers themselves also seem peculiar. There are some thoughts behind this having to do partly with calculating averages of grades and partly with the transition process from the old grading scale at the time the change was made.

More information

Much of this is only available in Danish, but to see the latest version of official documents on exams, grading scales, etc., please consult the information page for the censor corps for computer science.