Having taught online since 1991, and also working with many faculty, I have developed my own end-of-semester checklist.  Finals week is always stressful.  Not only for faculty but also for students.  I find if I have a simple checklist it helps me get things done and nothing falls through.

First thing I do is verify that my calculated columns in the grade book are working correctly and match with my letter grade schema and what I promised in the syllabus.  Once a class is set-up and offered a couple of times, I do not worry about this as much, but if I made on the fly changes during the semester, well, then I need to make sure everything is correct.  A couple of times I have actually put in some dummy grades on a dummy student or my demo student to check that all is calculating correctly.  I love Blackboards ability to calculate letter grades based a total column.  This is so cool.

My next step is to scan columns in the grade book to see if something seems out of place.  A student who is missing a lot of assignments, or a particular assignment that does not have many grades in it.  I am really looking for something that seems out of place, and will give me clues to go looking for the problems.

After I grade finals and final projects, and get all the final grades entered, I hit the magic button and away they go to our institutions SIS system.

Now it is time for a break.  

After that it is time for reflection.  I like to think through my course. What worked well, what did not work so well. What areas of my online course need improvement.  I make a few notes about that and chart out a plan to fix those things.  Because I am an Instructional Designer, I often try new things out in my class.  If it works I expand, if not, it is time to move on.

What is on your end-of-semester checklist?