{"id":1452,"date":"2024-06-10T12:07:27","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T16:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/langaraquickguides\/?post_type=chapter&p=1452"},"modified":"2026-02-25T15:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:43:10","slug":"grades-tool","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/langaraquickguides\/chapter\/grades-tool\/","title":{"raw":"Grades","rendered":"Grades"},"content":{"raw":"

Grades<\/h1>\r\n
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\r\n\r\nThe Brightspace Grades tool offers a powerful and flexible way to manage your grade book. It simplifies the grading process, enabling you to create and customize grade items for projects, assignments, discussions, and quizzes, and to integrate these with other Brightspace tools.\r\n\r\nThe Grades tool allows you to set up a grading system that aligns with your course goals, ensuring effective communication of student progress and areas for improvement. You can customize how grades are displayed, updated, and managed, creating a seamless and efficient grading experience.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
Grades<\/strong> is grading guide 3 of 4.<\/span><\/div>\r\n

Things to consider<\/h2>\r\nBefore setting up your Brightspace grade book, refer to the course's Education Council approved grade allocation. Use the grade allocation to guide your creation of grade categories.\r\n\r\nGrading serves a dual purpose: providing feedback and evaluating student work. Through effective grading, you communicate students' performance, highlight their progress, and identify areas needing improvement to achieve course goals. In addition to marks, plan how you will provide feedback on graded items. Consider using rubrics, comments, and other feedback tools to give constructive and meaningful feedback.\r\n

Overview of the Grades Tool<\/h2>\r\nThe Brightspace Grades tool offers a robust suite of features designed to create and manage grades. With its flexible and powerful capabilities, Brightspace reduces technical barriers and empowers you to teach and assess in a way that aligns with your course learning outcomes.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/Sj_TIkhMoiA?si=BWTF9aoKJwYVopfT\r\n

Setting Up Your Brightspace Gradebook for Student Success<\/h2>\r\nA well-structured gradebook helps students track their progress and understand how individual assessments contribute to their overall grade. To ensure transparency, students should have access to their overall progress at various points throughout the term (e.g., before the withdrawal deadline, after substantial assessments, etc.).\r\n\r\nIn Brightspace, you can display overall progress in two ways:\r\n
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\r\n\r\nRelease Final Calculated Grade<\/strong>\r\nThis option displays overall progress to students which automatically updates as students complete assessments throughout the term.\r\n\r\nPros:<\/strong><\/span> provides real-time view of overall progress when released.\r\n\r\nCons:<\/strong> <\/span>requires ungraded items to be treated as 0* in order for accurate display of overall progress. This means overall grade is additive as assessments are completed. Students will need a clear explanation on the gradebook set up.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\nMilestone Grade Calculations<\/strong>\r\nThis approach requires you to manually set up grade calculations at key points in the term, helping students understand their performance at designated checkpoints.\r\n\r\nPros:<\/strong> <\/span>allows ungraded items to be dropped* so it will display student progress in relation to the number of assessments completed.\r\n\r\nCons:<\/strong><\/span> each milestone grade calculation needs to be manually set up.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n*Refer to cautionary notes regarding Grade Calculations<\/a><\/span>\r\n

Essential Steps to Setting Up Your Grade Book<\/h2>\r\n
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Before you Begin<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

Have your course syllabus, assessment list, and grading structure ready. Plan to set up your complete gradebook at the start of term to ensure accurate grade calculations for students. If assessment items are missing, students may see misleading calculations of their overall progress\u2014grades may appear artificially higher, lower, or incomplete depending on the settings used. This can lead to student confusion about their actual standing in the course.<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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  1. Complete the Grades Setup Wizard.<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Create grades categories<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. Create grade items<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. Associate activities with grade items<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    <\/a>Complete the Setup Wizard<\/h2>\r\nYou can configure the setup of your gradebook by clicking My Tools<\/strong> > Grades<\/strong>.\"\"\r\n\r\nThe Setup Wizard is the first step in creating your gradebook. If this is your first-time accessing Grades in your sandbox or course, you will automatically be directed to the seven-step Setup Wizard. You can return to the Setup Wizard at any time through the Setup Wizard\u202ftab. Under the\u00a0<\/span>Setup Wizard tab<\/strong>, scroll down and click\u00a0<\/span>Start<\/strong>\u00a0to begin setup.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe Setup Wizard allows you to:\r\n