Grade Journey update: Marks-to-SIS staff training programme

A comprehensive, institution-wide training programme is now in place to support academic and professional services colleagues in adopting the Marks-to-SIS (Grade Journey) solution for the 2026/27 academic year.

The enhanced Marks-to-SIS solution is live and will be used from the start of the next academic year. Until then, marks should continue to be entered into SIS as usual.

Formal training will run from the week commencing 13 April through to the week commencing 27 July, with 56 sessions now available to book via the Academic Registry UNICAL webpage. Events are labelled as ‘Academic’ or ‘School Admin’ to support self-booking.

This training programme aims to ensure that Marks-to-SIS is integrated smoothly and consistently as standard practice for 2026/27.

Training delivery

The training will be delivered through in-person, hands-on sessions in centrally located IT suites to ensure colleagues can practise directly in the Canvas and SIS environments they will use.

This approach has been adopted to:

• Enable colleagues to practise end-to-end scenarios with support
• Resolve questions and issues at the point of use
• Build confidence in course copy, assessment setup, marking, extensions, and final marks submission
• Reduce the risk of errors from inconsistent adoption of new workflows

Academic and School Admin team targeted sessions

Sessions are scheduled across each week and aligned with academic calendars.

Academic sessions pause during the main three-week examination period, which is dedicated to training the School Admin teams.

The programme combines open sessions with targeted training for schools and programmes with more complex assessment arrangements (e.g., Nursing, Pharmacy and PAH Professional Programmes).

Attendance will be monitored, and additional sessions will be added as needed to ensure full coverage and organisational readiness.

Supporting resources

Training is reinforced through structured communications and supporting materials including step-by-step guidance and short videos.

Resources will be available in advance of training sessions and remain accessible for reference afterwards.

Canvas course copy risk

In the meantime, it is important that academics do not publish, import, copy, or otherwise work on 2026/27 Canvas course pages until they have completed the formal Marks-to-SIS training.

Copying content from previous years is common practice, but for 2026/27, colleagues will need to adopt a selective copy approach.

Full course copies may disrupt the Canvas to SIS integration, particularly if not carried out correctly, and could lead to issues later in the assessment cycle.

Project contacts

If you have any questions or need to request an exception, please contact Rafi Afridi (Business Change Manager) or Jen Peters (Senior Learning Technology Trainer).