Gradebook

Answering Your Gradebook Questions (part 2)

⇒Troubleshooting Final grades:

• Final calculated grade showing a value out of a percentage different than 100? Switch to the Treat ungraded items as 0 option, from Grades/Settings/Calculation Option tab, under the Grade Calculation label
• Final calculated Grade not automatically updating? Make sure you have the Automatically keep final grades updated option checked off from Grades/Settings/Calculation Option tab
• Final Calculated Grade not visible to students? Go to Grades/Enter Grades tab and click on Enter Grades from the Context menu for the Final Calculated Grade column. Then select all the rows and click on the Release/Unrelease option.
• I get error messages that the weights are not adding up to 100%. From Grades/Manage Grades, select all columns and click on Bulk Edit. Adjust the weights and click Save.
• Grades not displaying in columns for completed activities. Check if your quizzes/assignments/topics have gradebook columns associated.
  Watch this video from D2L on troubleshooting final grades.

⇒Need to give your students bonus points? Watch this video for details.

⇒Need to keep a copy of the student grades? If you ever need to save a paper copy of the students grades, this is how you can export it to a file that you can open in Excel. Note that, if you use a combined course and you need to download students from one particular section, you will need to filter first by the section.

⇒How do I hide a gradebook column? There are different types of gradebook columns in Brightspace, and each has a different way of hiding its content from student view.

• Hide Final Calculated Grade/Final Adjusted Grade columns – Click here for detailed instructions on how to hide these columns.
• Hide a column that it is NOT associated with any online activity (for instance, when you need to enter grades for course participation) – While in Grades/Enter Grades view, click on the chevron for the title of the column and choose Edit. Click on the Restrictions tab and then on Hide from Users. You can also use dates to restrict the view of the grades for a limited amount of time.
• Hide a column associated with online activity (quiz/assignment/discussion) – As these activities are linked to gradebook columns, just hiding the columns in the gradebook won’t actually hide the grades from students. They still have the option to view their grades by going to the Activities menu and then to that particular activity, if that activity is still visible. Follow the steps from number 2., but also make sure you hide the quiz/assignment/ discussion, or have the grades set up as draft and not published.

Important: Please make sure you hide the Gradebook columns prior to you entering the grades!

⇒How do I submit the final Grades? Learn how to download your grades from Brightspace and upload them into ACSIS by clicking here.

“Course Copier” role now Available in Brightspace

There are times when you need to add other teachers to the courses that you are developing, with the intention to have them do a course copy from your course to theirs, but you would like to make sure that your course content does not get altered by mistake. Instead of adding them with the “instructor” role, please use the new “course copier” role,

Reminder: Support for Internet Explorer NOT Available

Starting January 1st, 2020, D2L will end the support for Internet Explorer. All versions of Internet Explorer will no longer be able to access Brightspace. We recommend using Chrome while working with Brightspace.

Answering Your Gradebook Questions (part 1)

⇒Are you wondering what the student view of the Grades looks like? Go to your Grades/Enter Grades tab, click on the chevron beside the name of one student, and then click Preview. You (the instructor) control the students’ view of the grades (points, percentage, letters) from your Grades menu, Settings/Org Unit Display Options tab.

⇒How do I manually enter student grades in the gradebook (Grades/Enter Grades)?

• How do I enter grades for all columns, for one particular student? Click on the student name in the Last Name/First Name column. This view also allows you to enter comments for each grade.
• How do I enter grades for all students, for one particular column? Click on the chevron for the title of the column and then choose Enter Grades
• How do I use the gradebook as a spreadsheet? Go to Grades/Enter Grades and click on the Switch to Spreadsheet view button. Click Save to save the changes.

⇒How do I remove a gradebook column? Go to Grades/Manage Grades and click Delete from the More Actions button. In the next screen, select the grade items you would like to remove and click Delete. Note that you can ONLY remove columns that are NOT associated with any activities. For columns with associations, you need to go to that particular activity (quiz, assignment or discussion topic) and remove the association from the Grade Item drop down list (choose NONE). To figure out which activity the grade item is associated to, in the Manage Grades screen, click on the question mark icon in the Association column

⇒Want to reorder the columns in the Gradebook? Go to Grades/Manage Grades tab/More actions/Reorder.

⇒I have different points possible displaying in the gradebook for the columns associated with quizzes and assignments. What do I do? If there are no submissions for your quiz or assignment, then to correct this, you just need to edit the associated column from Grades/Manage Grades and adjust the points.
If you already have graded the assignment or quiz, this is what you need to do:

• Assignment: You published the grades, but noticed that the column in the Grades has different maximum points than the assignment. Unfortunately, once you edit the column and change the points, the existing grades won’t get automatically adjusted. You will need to go to Activities/Assignments/View Submissions and Update the grade for each student (the same screen you use when you first grade the assignment and publish grades).
• Quiz: After you edit the maximum points for the column, in Grades, go to Activities/Quizzes/Grade/Users tab. Select all the students and then click Publish Feedback. Click Save and Close and then go back to the same screen and hit again Publish Feedback. This will force the grades to be readjusted in the gradebook.

Exemplar Course Templates (The Winners of the You Think You Can Brightspace)

You will be enrolled in three template courses which you can use to get ideas about content design and layout. You can copy the structure from these templates into your own blank Winter course shells, if you want to use them as the starting point for your Winter course setup.

14 Weeks Semester

A gentle reminder as we plan for the Winter 2020 semester in the new 14 week format: for most programs we are numbering weeks from 1 to 15, with Week 8 being the Break Week. This is reflected in the structure of Exemplar Course Templates A and B, and also in the new CSI template. Should you have any questions related to converting your course to the new 14 semester or would like a copy of the new CSI template, please visit https://www.algonquincollege.com/lts/14-week/ or contact lts@algonquincollege.com to set up a consultation.

Algonquin College Letter Grade Scheme correction

It has been brought to our attention this week that the Algonquin College Letter Grade scheme present on Brightspace was incorrect. By design, the Brightspace Grade Center does not round up percentage grades up, which caused some grades to be incorrectly displayed in Brightspace when the letter grade scheme was used to display the final grade. The grade scheme has now been fixed in Brightspace, and will round up correctly.

Note that this had no impact on official final grades – Students’ grades are correctly rounded up when using the College Letter Grade Calculator before entering grades in ACSIS.

Hiding Gradebook Columns

There are different types of gradebook columns in Brightspace, and each has a different way of hiding its content from student view.

1. Hide Final Calculated Grade/Final Adjusted Grade columns – Click here for detailed instructions on how to hide these columns.
2. Hide a gradebook column that it is NOT associated with any online activity (for instance, when you need to enter grades for participation) – While in Grades/Enter Grades view, click on the chevron for the title of the column and choose Edit. Click on the Restrictions tab and then on Hide from Users. You can also use dates to restrict the view of the grades for a limited amount of time.
3. Hide a gradebook column associated with online activity (quiz/assignment/discussion) – As these activities are linked to gradebook columns, just hiding the columns in the gradebook won’t actually hide the grades from students. They still have the option to view their grades by going to the Activities menu and then to that particular activity, if that activity is still visible. Follow the steps from number 2., but also make sure you hide the quiz/assignment/ discussion, or have the grades set up as draft and not published.

Look out for more PD sessions on Brightspace Grades in the coming weeks.

Did you know?

As D2L is always improving the system through monthly system updates and system fixes, we are expecting that some of these current issues will soon be addressed. Meanwhile, please make sure you are aware of these issues:

1. No Space in the name file – If you are trying to upload an image in one of quiz questions and you are getting an error message, make sure that there is no space in the file name.
2. Rubric attached to a grade item is not updating the numerical grade – Users reported that when they were using a rubric attached to a grade item, the numerical grade was not being transferred from the rubric to the grades column, despite repeat attempts. Following investigation, the issue could only be replicated when the course was set to ‘Inactive’. The solution is to go to Course Offering Information (under Tools > Course Admin), set the course as Active, use the rubric to set the grade, and then if necessary, go back to Course Offering Information to make the course inactive again.
3. Text pasted in a rubric (during editing of the rubric) appears as being saved, but actually the text is not being retained – Using “ctrl +shift+v” when pasting text during the creation or the editing of a rubric is to be avoid. Use “Ctrl +V, or just type the text directed into the rubric.

So You Think You Can Brightspace

Thank you for your interest in this contest! We received 15 submissions, and judging will take place next week. This will be followed by the announcement of the winning submission in early November, along with a showcase of the excellent work that was shared with us through the contest. Watch this space!