Like in many comparable academic programs, course work here will be measured in terms of “units” and “credit hours.” First of all, each course is divided into 8 to 16 academic units. Secondly, the widely accepted principle is that three credit hours are assigned to a class (in face-to-face education) or to a group of learners belonging to a batch (in the distance mode) that meets or receives instruction (here, the candidate would interact with the system by logging in) for three hours of learning (whether lectures or discussions or other modes of instruction) every week. Since the whole instruction will be online, each credit hour will be equivalent to three hours of logging in, because in the comparable US system, for instance, at the diploma/undergraduate level, one hour of undergraduate credit means one hour of lecture and two hours of homework, whereas at the post graduate level, it would have meant one hour of lecture and five hours of homework, i.e. six hours of logging in per course per week. Since the plan is to make it a two- semester or two-term course, with two courses in each semester/term, and since the online program on offer is at a level less than the U.S. graduate program or our P.G. level (in the Indian parlance), the web-based system will require a student registered for diploma to log in – at the time of his/her choice, for a total period of 9-hours per week for a 3-credit course, and 12-hours per week for a four credit course, on an average. If there are two 3-credit courses being offered at a time, the total log-in requirement will be 9 + 9 = 18 hrs per week (into 16 weeks, i.e.288 hrs). For someone who takes the 5 credits option in ILA-BA-D001 and D002 courses, the total log-in hrs should be 240 hrs.

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      The flexibility lies in the fact that the total log-in period will be calculated on the basis of a 16-week semester length in the following manner, but the requirement will be that this 288 hours of contact for the first two courses is completed within a period of six months (180 days) , extendable by another three months (90 days), for someone to qualify to move on to the next round of courses. (One can, ofcourse, cross this threshold level of 90 days and request for further extension which will be at the discretion of the course coordinator(s)). Let’s look at the following possibilities:

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      However, it is perfectly possible that in a particular week, one has not logged in for 9 hours for each course, and has fallen short by a few hours (say, ILA-BA-D001 = 7 hrs and ILA-BA-D002 for 8 hrs, i.e. a total of 15 hrs), but as long as one makes it up in the subsequent weeks by doing extra work, there will be no problem.

      Notice that for the second term courses, we have the following levels:

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      Accordingly, the contact or log in hours (in our on-line distance mode) should be as follows:

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      Now, if someone wants to complete all four courses within the shortest time-span offered so far in our design, one can go out with 9 to 14 credits, as the case may be. But the candidate who would like to have the diploma with 9-credits within six months will require to log in – in all four courses put together – according to the above calculations, a minimum of 432 hours of contact, i.e. roughly 13.5 hours per week on an average unfailingly for the entire 32 weeks period. That will be the fastest one can go. As one can see, it will still cater to a part-time student who is registered for our program. A full-time student who wishes to do nothing else but our diploma and also with highest distinction, will need to put in a total of 672 hours of log-in within six months – a tough proposition indeed, but nevertheless, a doable one, i.e. 28 hours of contact per week throughout this period, if we count all six months, or 42 hours of contact per week if we take the duration to be only 16 weeks ( like a semester, and not 24 weeks or 6 months).

      A question can arise as to what happens when one registers for certain credits but realizes later that he/she cannot probably cope up with so much and would like to opt for a lower credit level. Well, in this system, that is always possible, as

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      "Registered credits" are the number of credits for which a student is enrolled initially in any given term.

      "Quality credits" or "Earned credits" are the number of credits for which students have finally qualified. They are the ones that actually count toward their grade point average, as reflected in the score card. The determination of whether or not a credit will be a “quality credit” can be made only AFTER the course is graded by the coordinators.

      Thus, the candidates will also have a choice of ‘Add/Drop’ request button, through which changes in plan can be effected.

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      In order to calculate academic statistics, maximum student credit load, full-time and part-time status and other measures involving students’ credits, log-in hours per course as reflected in the student records are all taken into consideration for each student. In many systems, GPAs are maintained on the internal academic record for all students but are not necessarily printed on the transcripts. The final GPA is calculated by looking at the scores or grades in each course put together. And, grade points or scores ( both letter grade and numerical grade) in each course are calculated on the basis of performance in the components of assignments and end-terminal examinations.

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      Some categories of students may simply opt for or elect the following grade types:

	AU (audit, or merely 'sat through' a course)
	PF (pass/fail, i.e. P for Pass and F for Fail)
	PN (pass/no credit, like in the Wharton undergraduates)
	XC and XX (exclude credit; Some may like to have a mere ‘Certificate’ by excluding their scores)

      However, these options are generally available to students even after the course is over and they have appeared in the examinations, and are ready to receive the diploma/certificate/score-cards. At that stage too, the student will have an option to go to a relevant page for Degree/Diploma type and opt for a choice like Screen Y: Registration / Drop / Request for display of their results in the above special types on academic records.

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      In the normal cases, the students will receive either of the following grade-points for each course in their score cards:

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      Below is an example of a GPA calculation using the above grading system for a hypothetical Bangla Online student (=a particular candidate) who may have scored, say 4 A’s, 4 B’s and 8 C’s in the 16 tests and assignments under the Course D001, etc, etc. If so, imagine, this is his or her scoring pattern in all four courses at the end of the Diploma program :

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      Therefore:

            Sample (C) GPA: 141.02 points divided by 51hours = 2.77

            i.e. Letter - Grade = C+

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      Let's see how this candidate has fared in each course:

      As one would notice from the above score of this particular candidate, he/she may not have done very well in word formation and lexicon (B), but has acquired a reasonably good command of script / pronunciation or syntax section (reflected by C+) and can actually comprehend written texts quite well (as isclear by B+). Anyone who would like to interpret his/ her score card will easily come to these conclusions.

      The following is a sample list of grading scales from selected countries which is useful for comparison :

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