Smarter Gradebook Calculations
In the gradebook, if you use the total or weighted total columns to calculate percentages or letter grades, you may be interested in new, smarter calculations. This new feature has no effect if you use the total and weighted total columns for scores; rather, it is only useful if you use the total column for percentage or letter grade.In the new version of Blackboard, you can replace the total and the weighted totals with new column names: Running Total and Running Weighted Total. These new columns do not include scores from assignments or tests that the students have not taken or that have not been graded. Note that if Running Total and Running Weighted Total are set, instructors will have to manually set grades to “0” if a student doesn’t turn in an assignment. The original total and weighted total columns do include assignments and tests that have not been graded, assigning them a score of “0”.
To see how the running total or running weighted total works, let’s look at an example.
You have posted 10 assignments. Suppose student Joe has submitted all 10 assignments and tests. You have graded 8 of them, and Joe is a great student and received all of the possible points for these 8 assignments. However, you have not yet graded the last two assignments. If all of the assignments count equally, and if you had set the total column to calculate percentage, Joe would receive an 80% in the total column, because he received a perfect score on 8 out of 10 assignments. If you have changed the total column to a running total column, Joe would score 100%. In the running total column, the two ungraded items are not counted as a “0” towards the running total, so Joe gets his full score. In other words, ungraded items are excluded from the running totals or the running weighted totals. However, if Joe only turned in 8 out of 10 assignments, the instructor will have to manually set grades to “0” to unsubmitted items.
If you would like to use the Running Total and Running Weighted Total columns, so that student totals only include completed and graded items, you must replace the Total and Weighted Total columns with Running Total and Running Weighted Total columns. Please note that the default condition for Fall 2006 courses is NOT to use the running total and running weighted total, so if you do want to use them, you must make this change.
Here is the procedure.
- Select Gradebook from the Control Panel of the Course, and
- Click on the Total with the total column:
- Select Item Information:
- Select Yes next to Exempt items that have not been graded:
- Select “percentage” or “letter”, and select Submit:
- Repeat for the Weighted Total column.