Settings and Setup Wizard

Most of the work that goes into building a course site’s Grades will take place in Manage Grades, although several important options are available in Settings (in the top-right corner of any Grades screen).

Visiting Grades for the first time in a new site will prompt the use of the Setup Wizard, which offers a step-by-step walkthrough of how to configure all aspects of Grades.

Open

The Settings button one the Grades page.

The Setup Wizard is recommended for beginners but likely unnecessary for experienced users. All options in the Setup Wizard do appear in Settings.

The Setup Wizard itself is always available as a tab near the top-center.

Open

The Setup Wizard tab on the Grades page.

Instructions

Click on Setup Wizard and follow each step. All of the options chosen through the Setup Wizard can be changed at a later time through Settings, which can be accessed in the top-right corner of any Grades page.

Grading System

Decide whether to use a Weighted or Points-based grade system. CPI strongly recommends using a weighted grading system, as it more closely matches the usual assessment structure in syllabi.

Weighted

A weighted grade system tends to more accurately represent how most course syllabi are structured. It allows instructors to assign a weight to any assessment in the gradebook, which doesn't have to match what the assessment itself is being graded out of. For example, in the image above, the Final Exam is set to be 25% of the students' final grade, and it is only marked out of 40.

Additionally, a weighted system makes use of categories, which can group similar grade items together like weekly assignments or quizzes. Items that are within a category have weighting that is set to equal 100% of the category itself, which can be a certain weight of the final grade. In the image above, there is an Assignments category, which is set as 35% of the final grade. Within the category, there are two assignments, which are each 50% of the Assignments category, thus making 100% of the 35% of the final grade; this is called the distribution weight and in the Manage Grades area it is possible to direct Brightspace in how to distribute weight among multiple assessments.

Instructors whose syllabus follows a strict weighted structure will find the weighted grade system much more effective at replicating their assessment structure.

Points-Based

The Brightspace default, a points-based system is more simplistic than the weighted system where assessments are usually singular and often are graded out of their weighted worth. The final grade equates to the sum of all the points students have achieved. For example, the image above depicts the Final Exam being out of 40 points, and the two separate assignments being 25 and 30 points (thus making the Assignments category 55 points). The Final Grade is the sum of all the points of the assessments, which is why it totals to 135. There is no ability to weight the assessments separately from their points-value, thus making the system more simplistic compared to a weighted system, but potentially not as helpful if instructors grade an assessment differently than they weight it.

Releasing Final Grades

Decide whether you want to automatically release the final grade to students, or if you want to choose when to release grades at a later date.

Drop Ungraded Items vs Treat as Zero

Decide whether you want to treat ungraded items as zero, or drop ungraded items so that it does not impact students' final marks (note: if you select treat ungraded items as zero, all of the students begin with zeros in the gradebook which can be alarming to them).

Updating Final Grades

Choose to manually or automatically keep the final grade updated. The default is to keep final grades automatically updated according to grades entered into grade items.

Grade Scheme

Select the desired grade scheme you wish to use. CPI strongly recommends keeping the default Percentage scheme.

Instructor View

Select the number of decimal places the instructor will see in the gradebook (note: the default is two).

Student View

Select the Student Display Options you wish to allow students to see (note: the default settings are already applied).

Review

Review all your chosen settings and then click Finish once you are satisfied with your selections.