Body
Summary
The Brightspace Grades tool is a feature of every course. It is a flexible, online grade book that instructors can use to provide their students with timely and readily accessible feedback. The Grades tool can accommodate both points-based and weighted grading methods, the inclusion of bonus and extra credit opportunities, the exclusion of certain items (e.g., the lowest quiz score) from the final grade, and more. The Grades tool is also integrated with other Brightspacetools used to support graded activities, including the Quizzes, Discussions, Assignments, and Rubrics tools. Grades from these activities can be transferred to the Grades tool automatically.
Information Applies to
Faculty
Jump to
Setting Up Your Gradebook
Adding a Grade Item
Connecting Grade Item to Assignment, Discussion, or Quiz
Entering and Deleting Grades
Releasing Grades to Students
Calculated versus Adjusted Grades
Extra Credit
Setting Up Your Gradebook
Setting up a grade book in Brightspace is made easy by using the Setup Wizard that launches when you enter the Grades tool the first time. Taking your time with this functionality really is worth it and strongly recommended if you are new to Brightspace. Simply follow the instructions and set your preferences.
For more information on setting up your Gradebook, check out the D2L Brightspace Community.
Adding a Grade Item
Brightspace supports several grade item types. This article describes each grade item type and provides links to instructions for creating each type of grade item.
Each grade item has its own characteristics and uses. Numeric grades (e.g "8 out of 10" or "93%") are most commonly used in courses. As you will see below, other grade item types have different looks and means of assessing. Grade item types support varied types of assessment, including
- special types of assessment (like measuring success by assigning a pass/no-pass grade),
- calculating a new grade item based on other grades in the grade book (like a midterm grade), or
- a quick way to enter assessment (like choosing the letter grade from a drop down menu).
Grade Item Types
There are six types of grade items.
- Numeric: Numeric grades are the most widely used in assessment. They tell the student how they scored in their work in terms like: "48 out of 50 points (48/50)" or "87%" or "B". Numeric grades are often used for all types of assignments and for the final grade for the course.
- Select Box: Select box grade items allow the teacher to select the appropriate grade value from a pull down menu. This speeds up the assessment process by assigning the grade with a couple quick mouse clicks rather than typing in the grade. Assessing with a select box grade item is a two-step process.
- Select boxes rely on grade values as defined within a grade scheme. A grade scheme is a preset list of values (like "A", "B", and "C") with associated numeric values. Creating this is a one-time operation.
- The select box grade item is configured to use the grade scheme from Step 1 as the contents of the drop down menu.
- Pass/Fail: Students are assessed as either successfully completing the assignment or not successfully completing the assignment. There is no letter grade or point value assigned to the assessment. The assessor selects either "Pass" or "Fail" from the menu to assess. Pass/Fail grades can be used to assess any assignment, discussion, or quiz but cannot be associated to the assessable item, so grade entry must be done in the grade book.
- Formula: Formula grade items use already-existing items to create a new grade item in the grade book. Formulas can include several calculations, including things like adding up grades, finding the maximum minimum from a set of grades, averaging scores, and so on. Existing grade items are selected from a list of all available grade items in the grade book. Formulas cannot be associated with assignments, discussions, or quizzes.
- Calculated: Calculated grade items are a fast and easy way to total up selected grade items to produce a new grade item. For example, a calculated grade item might show the total for all of the quizzes taken thus far or perhaps a midterm grade. The teacher selects which items to include in the calculation from a list of all the available grade items in the grade book. Calculated grade items cannot be associated with course objects such as discussions, quizzes, and assignments.
- Text: Use text grade items to provide comments that are not counted towards users’ final grades. Text grade items can belong to a category but they do not contribute to the calculated final grade. Text grade items cannot be associated with course objects such as discussions, quizzes, and assignments.
Adding a Grade Item
Instructors can add Brightspace grade items to their grade book to share grade data with students.
- From your Brightspace course, select Grades from the Assessments menu at the top of the page.
- Select the Manage Grades tab.
- Select the New button and select the type of grade Item you wish to add (see above).
- Set the grade item's properties in the Properties tab and select Save and Close. Fields in the Properties tab will differ depending on grade item type and whether you are using a Points or Weighted grading system. All grade item types require the specification of a Name. This name will be displayed in the student view of the grade book. Use the Short Name field to add a shorter name as the column header in your grade book. You can also set restrictions on the grade item and associate it with objectives you added using the Competencies tool using the corresponding tabs.
Check out the D2L Brightspace Community for further instruction on creating grade items.
Connecting Grade Item to Assignment, Discussion, or Quiz
From the Edit menu of your assessment (assignment, discussion, or quiz), select the "Add to Grade Book" or "Edit or Link to Existing" option. This will either add a new grade item or link the assessment to an existing grade item. Be sure to save when done. The process of connecting an assessment to the Gradebook is the same for all assessment types.
For a video tutorial, check out the D2L Brightspace YouTube page.
Entering and Deleting Grades
You can manually enter grades in the Gradebook by using the Spreadsheet View. Be sure to save when done.
Check out the D2L Brightspace Community for further instruction on creating grade items.
Releasing Grades to Students
If your grades are not released already, indicated by an eyeball icon without a line through it next to each student's final grade, then do the following:
- Go to the Grade Book in D2L Brightspace. Start in the Enter Grades view.
- Select the down arrow to the left of the column header Final Grades and select Enter Grades from the dropdown menu.
- Select the uppermost checkbox on the left to select all of your students.
- Select the Release/Unrelease from the Final Grades dropdown menu.
- Select the Save and Close button to return to your grade book. You will now see an eyeball icon without a line through it next to the grade in either the Final Calculated Grade column or the Final Adjusted Grade column.
Calculated versus Adjusted Grades
In every Brightspace grade book, there is a Final Calculated Grade and a Final Adjusted Grade column by default. Only one of these columns can be released to students. The Final Calculated Grade column displays the student's mathematical score using the selected grading method, points-based or weighted. The Final Adjusted Grade column allows instructors to make adjustments to those mathematical scores manually (e.g., giving students on the bubble credit for improvement).
There are two types of bonus points (extra credit) in Brightspace:
- Allowing assignments to exceed their maximum points. Grade items are often associated with assignments, quizzes, and discussion topics. In general, these grade items are given a maximum number of points the student can earn. For example, a 25-point quiz or a 100-point essay. Brightspace supports the ability to allow students to earn extra points within a grade item if the student goes above and beyond. Like maybe 102 out of 100.
- Creating bonus items. Sometimes optional assignments are given as a means to collect extra-credit points. For these types of work, grade items can be designated as bonus items. Bonus grade items are not figured into the final point total for the course and are only added to the final grade after the final grade is calculated. Students can only view the point value of a bonus item in the grade book, the letter-grading scale does not apply as all the points are extra credit.
Allowing a Grade Item to Exceed Maximum Points
If you are creating a new grade item and wish to allow for extra credit, select Grades under Assessments in the navbar, then click New and select Item. If you are modifying an existing grade item, select Grades under Assessments in the navbar, then click the arrow after the name of the grade item and select Edit.
Grade items that allow students to collect extra-credit points are created in the same manner as every other numeric item in the grade book, with one exception. To allow for extra credit within an assignment, select the Can Exceed checkbox under the Grading heading on the Properties tab for the grade item. This allows the student to collect more points than the Maximum Points defined in the grade item. See the example figure to the right.
Note: If the grade item is part of a grade category, the category must also be configured to exceed its maximum points. Like within the grade item, select the Can Exceed checkbox in the Grading section of the Properties tab for the grade category.
Creating an Extra Credit Assignment
If you are creating a new grade item specifically for a bonus assignment, select Grades under Assessments in the navbar, then click New and select Item. If you are modifying an existing grade item to make it a bonus assignment, select Grades under Assessments in the navbar, then click the arrow after the name of the grade item and select Edit.
Grade items that allow students to collect bonus points are created in the same manner as every other numeric item in the grade book, with one exception. To allow for a bonus assignment, select the Bonus checkbox under the Grading heading on the Properties tab for the grade item. See the example figure to the right.
Note: Grade items for bonus assignments appear as a numeric grade only in the grade book. Because they are treated as extra points and are added in after the final grade is calculated, no letter grade can be assigned to them.
Learn More
The D2L Brightspace Community offers several knowledge articles related to the Gradebook.
D2L Brightspace has a wide range of tutorial videos related to the Gradebook.
Need additional information or assistance? Contact WSU TLT by email, phone (507.457.5240, option 3), or Zoom.