A generic method for distribution and transfer of ECTS grades and other norm-referenced grades within student cohorts

The ECTS grade transfer scale is an interface grade scale to help European universities, students and employers to understand the level of student achievement. Hence, the ECTS grading scale can be seen as an interface, transforming local scales to a common system where A-E denote passing grades. By definition, the ECTS grade transfer scale involves distribution of the passing students into five cohorts representing fixed percentiles. This paper presents a generic method to distribute students with differentiated passing local grades into differentiated ECTS grade, or any other grading scale, cohorts. It takes into account historic student performance, the percentiles required for the scale in question, and the performance of a student group relative to student groups previously graded in the same course module. The method can handle any number of equally or unequally spaced local grade cohorts of any size and allows direct transfer between local grades in the spirit of ECTS.