Blackboard's Grade Center is actually very complex - in this week's post, we'll cover a variety of ways that you can customize the Grade Center to help it work more effectively for you. All of the areas described below can be found within the Manage drop-down menu within the Full Grade Center (shown to the right). Each of the headings below links to an official Blackboard help page that includes step-by-step instructions for managing and customizing any of these areas:
Grading Schema
Grading schema are set by default to a 90/80/70/60 grading scale. By default, a numeric score (points) shows in the Grade Center when an item is graded. If you choose to show letters instead of points - or to display a letter grade within a Total column - the letter will be determined based on the Grading Schema. This can be customized if you use a different grading scale. You can also create different types of grading schema, other than letters, such as Pass/Fail, Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory, or ones based on a numeric or other rating criteria.Color Coding
Rules based on either grades or status can be set to color code the Grade Center grid to provide a visual overview of student information. Colors are only visible in the instructor's Grade Center; students will never be able to view these. Rules for grading statuses of In Progress, Needs Grading, or Exempt are already created, but background and text colors for the cells need to be set if you wish to use these. Instructors can also set custom criteria so that grades that fall above/below or within a range of a certain percentage will appear with a colored background/text. Check out the video overview for color coding the Grade Center:Categories
Categories are used for grouping related columns together, particularly for the purpose of using a weighted grade system. Categories can also be used to filter your view of the Grade Center to view columns associated with only one category, to create a Smart View (see topic below), or to create a printable report of all columns associated with a specific category. By default, there are eight categories included in the Grade Center: Assignment, Blog, Discussion, Journal, Self and Peer, Survey, Test, Wiki (when the tool is available and you created a gradable wiki). One of these eight categories is automatically assigned to the Grade Center column when you create a gradable item within any of the categories. While the default categories cannot be deleted, instructors do have the ability to create additional custom categories that fit their own courses.Smart Views
Smart Views provide a focused view of the Grade Center based on either specific columns, categories, or students. Once you create a Smart View, the information is saved within your course to be viewed again. By default, there are Smart Views for Assignments and Tests that are saved as favorites and display under the Full Grade Center label on the navigation panel. You can switch between Full Grade Center and any Smart View at any time. Sometimes, when multiple sections of classes are enrolled into the same Blackboard course, Smart Views are helpful for seeing a focused view of each section within the Grade Center. Smart Views can also be created as part of the group setup process. These are very helpful when there are numerous students enrolled in the course, and you want to only view a select group or section at a time.Row Visibility / Column Organization
Rows can be hidden within a Grade Center - this is especially useful if a student has withdrawn from your course and you have made them unavailable so that they can no longer access the course. Hiding their row in the Grade Center will hide it from your view, and you can always show it again if you should need to access any data about the student.Additionally, you can select column organization to rearrange any columns in the Grade Center, freeze columns in the top table so that they remain stationary as you scroll across the Grade Center, hide columns from the instructor view (this is useful if you have entered grades for an entire column and want to hide it from the Grade Center so that you don't have to scroll past every column to enter new grades), show hidden columns, and change a column's category or grading period.
Check out the following video tutorial for additional information about customizing the Grade Center:
See Blackboard's official help page for details about Customizing the Grade Center.
Contact the Teaching & Learning Center at any time with questions about the Blackboard Grade Center.
In next week's post we'll discuss grading reports and steps for downloading the Grade Center to Excel. Our Blackboard Users' Group will meet on October 7 & 8.
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