Gradebook Miscellany

Instructors can send reminders to students from the gradebook for assignments that haven't been submitted yet. 

A student user will be counted and receive the reminder if they didn't submit and:

• they are available in the course.
• they have not received an automatic zero.
• they don’t have a manual override score that was posted.

Access the "Send Reminder" option in the Grades view by selecting the gradebook column header.

 
Reminders are sent as a blind carbon copy to non-submitting students or groups as a course message.

Instructors can view the sent message in their course messages. If messages are off and the reminder is sent as an email, the instructor will receive a copy of the email.

When sending the reminder, you will need to confirm your intent. The confirmation displays a count of the number of non-submitting students or groups who will receive the reminder.

 
 Instructor view of the reminder as a course message

 
For anonymous grading, non-submitting students receive the reminder via e-mail. This ensures that anonymity is preserved.

Many instructors who teach face-to-face and blended courses use Attendance as part of their students' overall grades. For each class meeting, you can mark whether a student is Present, Late, Absent, or Excused. The attendance records for each student appear in a single column next to other grades. 

On the Attendance page, profile pictures appear so you can easily identify students. You can use Attendance as part of a student’s grade calculations just as you can for an assignment grade column.

How to Access Attendance

There are two ways to access the Attendance in your Blackboard course: through the Details & Actions Panel and through the Gradebook. When you access the attendance feature for the first time, you decide if you want to add Attendance to your course Gradebook.

 
1. Access your course Attendance using one of the following ways:
a.    On your Course Content page, select Attendance/Mark Attendance located within the Details and Actions panel on the right-hand side of the screen.
b.    Navigate to your course Gradebook tab and select the plus sign (+) wherever you want to add the item and select Add Attendance.

• NOTE: Only use this method if you have not set up Attendance in the course before. After Attendance has been set up, a column will appear in the Gradebook.

How to Setup Attendance

1. On the Attendance page, select Add Attendance to open the Settings panel.

 
2. From within the Attendance Settings panel:

• You can change the default settings for the grade display and for Late in the Grading Schema.
  • See also: Grading Schema in Gradebook (Ultra)
• You can choose whether to include Excused in calculations.
• At this time, you cannot change the percentages for Present, Absent, and Excused. Excused counts as Present for scoring purposes.

3. By default, when you open Attendance, you'll see the Meeting view for the current day. In the Overall view, you can view several meetings and see overall course statistics. You can mark attendance from either view.

• In the Meeting view, you can mark each student's attendance. You can also use the menu in a Status heading to mark all students Present or Absent. Then, you can change individual students' statuses as needed. Your work is saved as you go.
• In the Overall view, in addition to marking attendance, you can view attendance history, and create, edit, and delete meetings.

4. Save your settings or close the panel if you don't want to make changes. An Attendance column appears in the Gradebook

5. At any time, you can change the schema in the Settings panel, save it, and then refresh the page. You'll see your newly selected schema reflected in the grade pills on the Attendance page in the Overall view.

Instructors can grant exceptions for graded assessments or exempt those grades entirely.

Exceptions

You can set exceptions from the assessment's Submissions page or from an individual submission.

When granting an exception, you can allow additional attempts or additional time to access an assessment, even if it is hidden to other students. You can even offer an exception for an assessment you've already graded and posted.

After you allow an exception, you'll see an icon next to the student's name. The assessment exception icon is the same icon that appears for accommodations.

1. Navigate to and open the assignment.
2. Click on the Submissions tab in the navigation menu.

 
 3. Select the more options menu for the student that requires the exception.

 
 4. Click Add or edit exceptions.

 
 5. Change the due date and/or time for the student and then click Save.

6. A new due date icon will appear next to the student’s name.

 
Exempting a Graded Activity

If you need to excuse a student for completing a graded activity in your Blackboard Ultra course so that it does not impact the student's overall grade, you can Exempt a graded activity. This feature may also be useful if you provide alternative methods for completing assignments in your course (e.g. students choose to complete a written activity or a video submission).

1.    Navigate to your Gradebook and ensure you are in the Gradable Items view.
2.    Click the item you need to exempt for select students.

 
3.    Next to the student you need to exempt, click the 3-dot menu and select Add or Edit Exemptions.

 
4.    Select the Exempt Grade checkbox and click Save.

Add Exemptions for Anonymous Assessments

Instructors can also access the exemptions option for an anonymous assessment from the Student Overview page. This will make it easier for instructors to manage exemptions and ensure a fair and accurate grading process for all students.

Instructor view – “Essay: Sun proximity effects – Milky Way” assignment is anonymously graded; the instructor can access the “Add or edit exemption” option from the overflow menu

The exemption icon is not visible in the gradebook grid view until all grades have been posted to help ensure student anonymity 

The exemption icon is not visible on an assessment submissions page until all grades have been posted; this helps to ensure student anonymity
 

Faculty can add extra credit to their course, either by adding an extra credit column in the gradebook or creating an extra credit assignment.

Create an Extra Credit Column 

1.    Navigate to the Gradebook.
2.    Hover your cursor between 2 items/columns and select the “+” sign that appears.

 
3.    Select Add Item.

4.    The name of the column is up to the instructor.

a.    You do not need a due date.
b.    Choose Grade using Points and set max points to Zero.
c.    Choose a category you would like the column to fall under. If you want to add this one column to the Assignment score, choose Assignment, etc.

 
Since the column has a max score of 0, you can manually override with the desired amount of points, which then will be considered extra credit.

Using the Default Overall Grade Column with Extra Credit 

If you are utilizing the default overall grade column, the points will be added automatically via the assigned category. Since this extra credit column is included in a category, the total possible points for the category will not change.

 
Using an Extra Credit Category 

This section is helpful if you wish to have multiple extra credit columns. For example, if you have multiple extra credit columns for miscellaneous items in you Gradebook.

1.    Navigate to the Gradebook.
2.    Find the Settings icon in the top right part of the Gradebook.

 
3.    The Gradebook Settings panel will open. Scroll down to the Grade Categories section.
4.    Select the Add New Category button.

 
5.    Create an Extra Credit category.

Adding Extra Credit to a Total Column 

1.    In the Gradebook, create an Extra Credit Column but for the category option, choose your newly created extra credit category. Keep all other settings the same.
2.    Create a Calculated Column by hovering your cursor between 2 items/columns of your Gradebook. Select the “+” sign that appears.

 
4.    Click Add Calculation.
5.    You can name your column anything you like, but for this purpose, we’ll name it “Final Grade”.
6.    Set the grade schema to points.

7.    Add a Total function and select everything you would like to include in the total grade including the Extra Credit category.

 
8.    Click the Save button.

Follow these instructions when setting up the course Gradebook for the semester and when integrating third-party publisher content into the grading system. It is especially useful when adopting new publisher materials or updating existing content to ensure grades are properly synced and factored into your students’ overall grade totals.

Step 1: Integrate Publisher Content into the Course

A. Access the publisher's website (e.g., Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Cengage) and follow their instructions to connect the content to Blackboard. This typically involves adding assignments, quizzes, or other activities via a Content Integration tool.
B. Once the content is integrated, confirm that the activities appear in the Gradebook.

Note: Do NOT copy the content from one site into another. This could introduce a bug into your Gradebook. If you mistakenly copied your course site, reach out to your eLearning liaison immediately so that they can assist you with next steps.

Step 2: Create a New Grade Category (if needed)

A. In the Gradebook, select Settings (the cog wheel in the upper right corner of the screen), then scroll down to find the Grade Categories section.

 
B. Click Add New Category.

• Name your category (e.g., "Homework," "Activity").
• Click anywhere on the screen to save the new category.

Step 3: Assign the Publisher Activity to a Grade Category

A. In the Gradebook, locate the publisher content activity you want to categorize.
B. Click the icon at the top of the column name and select Edit.

C. Scroll down to the Grade Category.

 
D. From the drop-down menu, select the category you created (or choose an existing one like "Homework" or "Quizzes").
E. Click the Save button.
F. Repeat this step for each publisher activity in your Gradebook.

What is Analytics?

Instructors take pride in seeing their students succeed but also feel their pain when they fall behind. Blackboard is working to increase the visibility of student performance so instructors are aware of the students who need more attention and can take action before it's too late. Student performance is the most recognizable during grading opportunities and is also reflected in a student's overall grade but often, it's too late to have an impact by the time grades are posted. Analytics for Learn is an optional service that allows you to run different reports for your courses that keep track of how your students are performing.

See also: Analytics for Learn

Analytics provides these reports:

• Course at-a-Glance: Interactions, submissions, and time in the course compared to similar courses in your department.
• Activity and Grade Scatter Plot: A scatter plot of your course activity and your grades in the course.
• Activity Matrix: This report compares each student's number of submissions to the average across all students in that course. The report includes a graph of submission trends over the entire term, the number of submissions, the average number of submissions in the course, days since the student's last submission, and the last submission type.
• Course Submission Summary Report: Submission information for each student including assignments, tests, surveys, and graded discussions and journals.

How to Access

On any assessment, instructors can open the activity panel to see which students have submitted, which ones have only started, and which students might be falling behind. There is also the ability to easily send those students a message.

1.    Select Analytics on the navigation bar. On the Course Analytics page, select Reports. The Reports page displays a list of reports you can run, along with the report description, and the timestamp of the last run. Select Run Report to generate the analytics report. Analytics for Learn reports will open in a separate tab.
2.    If you have Predict and Analytics for Learn, you'll see options for Reports and Student Risk Reports on the Course Analytics page. Select Reports to see the Analytics for Learn options.
3.    You can export the list of students from the reporting system and import the list into an application such as Microsoft® Excel® for further analysis.