Using the Gradebook

Adding Students | Adding Entries | Gradebook Settings | Grade Weighting | Changing Grades | Exporting | Importing | Viewing Grades

Adding Students to the Gradebook

All enrolled students are automatically entered into your gradebook. However unless you have created an assessment, or have added other gradebook entries, you will not see a listing of names. Once you create a gradebook entry (either manually or by creating an assessment) all the students will be listed.

Adding Entries to the Gradebook

Any quiz or survey that you create is automatically entered into the gradebook. Once a student takes the quiz, the grade is also automatically entered. You can also create or add additional entries in the gradebook for other course assignments. To add entries to your gradebook you must first click on the Gradebook link in the Assessment section of the Control Panel. Then click on the Add Item link. Once you create an item, you will see the complete course roster. (Instructors and Teaching Assistants are not listed in the gradebook.)

Gradebook Settings

Grade Weighting

Instructors can choose to assign weights based on item category. For example, you can assign all quizzes combined to equal 25% of the total. Categories are assigned to items by the instructor when created. Blackboard also allows instructors to "weight" the grades for each item or quiz, based on what percentage of the total class grade each item makes up. When the gradebook is exported to Excel, inconsistencies may arise with the weighted grade percentages. Instructors should know the difference between the methods of weighting before choosing one. The method chosen may not return the intended result.

Question: Can I weight grades without using Blackboard's weighting methods?
Answer:   Yes! Assign each item the appropriate number of points. For example, quizzes might be worth 100 points, exams worth 250 points, and the final worth 500 points. The grade will then be calculated Points Earned / Points Available.

Question: What is the difference between "Weight by Category" and "Weight by Item"?

Weight by Category
Calculation: 1) Calculate the percentage for each assessment 2) Average the percentages in each category 3) Multiply the average percentage for the category by the weight for the category.
Pro: Easy to use when the instructor is not sure how many items will be graded.
Con: Each assessment in a category is the same percentage of the total for the category regardless of the number of points. For example, if there are six quizzes, and quizzes are 30% of the total grade, then each quiz is worth 5% of the grade. It does not calculate 517 out of 600 points multiplied by the category weight.
Con: It may give skewed results when there are some items with few points and others with a lot of points because the percentage is averaged. (For example, 4/5 = 80% which is barely a B yet 24/25 = 96% which is an A.)

Weight by Item
Calculation: 1) Multiply each assessment percentage by the assessment's weight 2) add the results to get the total.
Pro: Instructor has control over how much each item is worth.
Pro: Instructor can motivate or penalize students by changing how much an item is worth. (For example, the instructor knows that only a few students have been studying.)
Con: It may be hard to get the total to equal 100%.

Question: How does each method calculate the grade?
Answer:   Please study the example below.

NOTE: Depending on the variables, the Weight by Category will not always calculate a lower score than the Weight by Item.

Changing Grades

You always have the ability to adjust the students' grades - for both assessments and posted assignments. You can do this from the View Grades by Item or View Grades by User by clicking on the actual grade you want to change. To adjust quiz scores, you must individually change the points for each question. You cannot adjust a student's quiz grade unless there is already a score in the gradebook.

Exporting the Gradebook

Blackboard allows you to export your gradebook to an Excel spreadsheet. To export a spreadsheet of your gradebook, go to Control Panel and click on the Gradebook link. Then click on the Download Grades button. This file can then be opened in Microsoft Excel, or another spreadsheet program. This is helpful because in Excel you can do grade calculations that you cannot do in Blackboard. Although the gradebook can be imported back into Blackboard, any special calculations will be lost. However, if you are using a numeric or coding system to identify students, you could save the spreadsheet as HTML and then upload it into another area of Blackboard for your students to access.

Importing a Gradebook

Note: For best results, Instructors should manipulate and upload a Gradebook that has been downloaded from the Blackboard Learning System. It is not advised that Instructors create a new Gradebook from scratch and then upload it.

When uploading Gradebook information, Instructors select one or more items in a Gradebook file they would like to upload from the first Choose Column to Import page. On the second Choose Column to Import page Instructors choose which Student information is uploaded from the Gradebook file.

Viewing Grades

In the individual student view, students see the date the item was graded, their score, the points possible, and the class average. If applicable, the assigned grade weight is shown on this page. If students take an online quiz, survey or assignment, they can click on the grade in the gradebook to see their specific results. Each student can only access their own grades.