Don’t Forget These Grading Setup Steps!

Posted by crawfobn on Tuesday, October 27, 2020 in Uncategorized.

As instructors give assignments, quizzes and discussions, there are some key grading setup elements to check before opening these activities to students.

Start with the Gradebook

If you intend to use the Brightspace gradebook, then I would start with this setup.

• Step 1: How do I set up my gradebook?
• Step 2: How do I create grade categories and items?

Any submitted activity in a course that needs to be graded, should have a grade item (column in the gradebook) created for it. Grade items start with a default max point value of 10. If the associated activity should be scored out of a different value (maybe 100 points), then you should edit the grade item max points to reflect that.

Assignment Grading Setup

When creating an assignment folder, remember to associate it with the grade item you created. If you did not create a grade item yet, then you are able to make one on the assignment setup page too.

• How do I link an assignment to a grade item?

If students submit files to an assignment folder that is not associated with a grade item and the instructor publishes the grades, those scores will not show up in the gradebook. Even if you later attach a grade item to the assignment folder and bulk re-publish the grades, there is a system quirk that still does not push those grades to the gradebook. You would be made to open each student’s assignment submission and click the blue Publish button in order for the scores to appear in the gradebook.

Quiz Grading Setup

When creating a quiz you should attach a grade item so scores appear in the gradebook.

• Associating Your Quiz to a Grade Item in your Gradebook

You must also decide if this quiz is to be auto-graded or manually graded based on the question types.

If your quiz only contains auto-gradable True or False, Multiple Choice, Multi-Select or Fill-in-the-Blank questions (pre-determined correct answers) then your Assessment setup should look like this (both boxes checked):

If your quiz contains any Short Answer or Written Response questions that require manual grading, then your Assessment setup should look like this (only bottom box checked):

Finally, once you know how grading will go, remember to setup your Submission Views that determine what feedback shows to students after quiz submission/grading.

• How do I Determine What the Student Sees Upon Completion of the Quiz?

Discussion Grading Setup

Discussions can be scored and sent to the gradebook by associating grade items.

Edit the topic.

Go to the Assessment tab to associate and existing grade item (or create one). Make sure the grade item score is the same value as the score here in the Assessment tab.

When time to grade, go to Assess Topic.