How to fairly test and grade a multiple section course

A student recently asked me about a test she had taken. This course has multiple sections and she had questions about how the test was administered. When a course has multiple sections, the School is generally supportive of the professor's efforts to give the exam in one large sitting. However, sometimes this isn't possible (for any of a number of reasons). So, in this case, when the exam is given at several times, the professor has to take steps to minimize the sharing of information between sessions.

The next step is to figure out how to assign grades on the exam: Should letter grades be assigned within a section or across sections?. This question is pertinent in both core and elective courses because there is a grading curve that applies to each.

Across

A student is compared with students in all the sections. The student's grade is affected by how students perform in other sections; this should allow a more accurate measure of how each student performs relative to all the students in the course. On the other hand, if the student is in a section that does not perform as well on the exam, then he or she would receive a lower grade than he or she would receive if the grades were not determined this way.

Within

A student is compared with other students in his or her own section. If the student is in a section that performs better on the test than other sections (for whatever reason), then that student would receive the same or a lower grade than he or she would have received when in another section. On the other hand, the student would not be receive a lower grade simply because students in another section scored higher on the test.

The across sections method is more appropriate when multiple sections are taught by the same professor or when the professors work hard to coordinate the content presented across sections. This method also has the feature that it discourages students from sharing information about the exam. However, in any case, the professor (or professors) have complete discretion to assign grades in whichever method he (or they) see fit.