Set up the Overall Grade

Michael Horowitz

June 06, 2023 16:15

Who is this guide for?

USA Faculty and Support Staff

What can this guide help with?

This guide can help with setting up the Overall Grade in a course. The overall grade is a running tally of a student's grade and can be shared with your students. In this article, the following will be covered:

Icons
Weighting, Proportionally vs. Equal
Categories
Step-by-step accessing and saving the overall grade.

Overall Grade Iconography

The Overall Grade uses icons to help distinguish different functions. These icons are present during setup:

Unlink Icon - separate an item from its category to weigh it independently

The icon below will unlink a column from a category. This is useful if you need to move an assessment out of a category. A linked column remains a part of a category. To unlink, click the icon that looks like the below:

When a column is unlinked, the icon will appear as below:

Click the icon again to return the column to it's category.

Padlock Icon - Lock or Unlock percentage text box

Locking an item will prevent automatically balancing.
The calculation will automatically balance all unlocked items to ensure the overall calculation equals 100%.

A locked column will have the padlock icon closed, and an unlocked column will have the padlock icon open. Note in the below screenshot that the unlocked column has an editable percentage field:

Exclude Icon - Remove items and categories from the overall grade calculation

Exclude an item within a category from the overall grade calculation. This removes the item points from the total number of points available in the course. The item or category turns purple to indicate that it's not included in the calculation. Select the icon again to include the item or category in the calculation again.

It is a good practice to exclude any items not included in the overall grade.

Weight Choice for Categories - Proportionally vs. Equally

Weight choice applies to ALL categories.

Proportionally

When selected, this option will weigh items proportionally based on the point value of the assignment and the total number of points in the category. It does not matter if the grade is set to display as percentage or letter, it will always use the point value. The more points an assignment is worth, the larger weight it has in the category. Following this, assignments worth the same grade will be worth an equal amount.

When this option is selected, Blackboard will add a tooltip that indicates what percentage of the total category is being assigned to that assignment.

Example: In the following screenshot, proportionally is selected. The total category is valued at 50% of the overall grade. Based on the point value, each assignment is prescribed a percentage total of the 50%. Summing each number will equal to 50%

Equally

When selected, this option will weigh items in each category equally, no matter the point value. Example: The overall grade below is weighted equally, and each item is worth 12.5%, for a total of 50%.

How Categories Work

Categories are groupings of gradebook items. These are created in the gradebook settings menu.

To create a category:

Navigate to your Gradebook
Click on the cog in the upper right corner.
An overlay will open on the right side of the page. Scroll down to Grade Categories.
Here, you can add a new category, or delete one that you don't need.

Columns/assignments and exams are moving from one category to another in their own settings menu. For more information on editing assignments, please visit this page: Create and Edit Assignments in Blackboard Ultra

Excluding a gradebook column from a category does not remove it from the category in the course, but will separate it in the overall grade for calculation purposes.