In the Grade Center, you can calculate grades by combining multiple columns to attain performance results, such as class averages, final grades that are based on a weighted scale, or total points. These are called calculated columns. You can display these columns to students so they can view performance results or you can display them only in the Grade Center for your use.
Occasionally, student performance on an assessment is lower than expected. Instructors can choose to modify the student scores on the assessment to equalize the scores.
Grading schemas map numerical and percent scores to letter grades or some other notation that you create (such as Pass/Fail). The Grade Center operates as a spreadsheet, which means that all entered scores must, at their foundation, be equal to a certain number of points. In order to represent these points as a letter grade, it must convert them to a percentage and then determine which range of percentages is equivalent to which letter grade.
Item analysis provides statistics on overall test performance and individual test questions. This data helps you recognize questions that might be poor discriminators of student performance. You can use this information to improve questions for future test administrations or to adjust credit on current attempts.
A rubric is an assessment tool listing evaluation criteria for an assignment, and provides a way to convey to students your expectations for the quality of completed assignments. Blackboard’s Rubrics tool allows you to use a provided rubric, or create one of your own. You can determine how much of this rubric students see, and when, and can use this rubric directly within the assignment you are grading to assign points based on the criteria you determined.
Whenever you want to add another layer of fairness and impartiality to your grading, you can use the anonymous grading feature.
You can perform offline grading and import grades into the Grade Center. You can also upload grades from external sources such as an Excel spreadsheet or a comma separated values (CSV) file. You must format data specifically to upload correctly and to synchronize with existing Grade Center data.
You can assign specific users in your course (those with Instructor, TA, or Grader user roles) to grade particular sets of student assignment submissions. The users who help you grade are called delegated graders and they provide provisional grades. Delegated graders follow the same grading steps that you do, however, the group of assignment attempts that they see are based on the options you choose. After all delegated graders provide grades and feedback, one or more instructors review the grading to determine a final grade or reconcile it.
You can create printable reports for your courses and students. You can also create a progress report that contains all of the grades from a particular grading period for a defined group of students in a class, such as special-needs students or transfer students. You can print this report and hand it out to each student, parent, or guardian.
Further information about the best uses of delegating grading to improve assessment practices in courses with multiple graders.
In the Grade Center, you can view various statistical information related to a column and any user. The Column Statistics page displays numerous statistics for a grade item, including average, median, and standard deviation. The User Statistics page displays a student’s statistics in various categories.
A smart view is a focused look at the Grade Center. It shows only the columns that match a set of criteria, and the view is saved for continued use.
A weighted total refers to a method of calculating grades that assigns a different percentage of the total grade (or “weight”) to individual assignments or groups of assignments. The Blackboard Grade Center can calculate this kind of weighted final grade for you.
The articles linked in this Roadmap will get you started working in the Blackboard Grade Center, whether you’re setting up your first course, or if you just need a refresher. Each section contains links to articles and documentation to help you through each step in building your Grade Center, from learning . . . Read more
You are able to create rules to apply color to the cells in the Grade Center grid, either by grade or status. Creating color rules in the Grade Center provides visual indicators to help you interpret information quickly. For example, you can use yellow to highlight graded items with failing . . . Read more