Step 1: Login to Brightspace and access your course
Step 2: Have a digital or printed copy of your syllabus- specifically the part that of the syllabus that lists the grading categories used in the course
Step 3: Select the COURSE ADMIN tab on the course navigation bar and then select the GRADES option listed
Scroll down to the bottom of the Grades Setup Wizard page and select the START button.
Step 1: Choosing a Grading System
Select the Weighted option and
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to click the CONTINUE button.
Step 2: Final Grade Released
Best practice: Accept the default settings by clicking the CONTINUE button.
Calculated Final Grade in Brightspace also means the Current Calculated Grade in the Course
Step 3: Grade Calculations
Best practice: Accept the default settings by clicking on the CONTINUE button.
Step 4: Choose Default Grade Scheme
- Select one of the UC Grade Scheme options:
UC Graduate Scheme- Select this option if you are teaching a campus Graduate course
UC Undergraduate Grade Scheme- Select this option if you are teaching a campus Undergraduate course
- Select the CONTINUE button after completing your selection of grade scheme
Step 5: Managing View Display Options
Select the number of decimals you want to display in the gradebook when there is a value that is not a whole number.
Select the CONTINUE button
Selecting 0,1, or 2 decimals would be something most people select.
Step 6: Student View Display Options
Select the default settings by clicking on CONTINUE button
Step 7: Grades Setup Summary
Just read over the page and select the FINISH button at the bottom of the page.
You can come back and change these options later if you need or want to.
Grade Options screen
We recommend that you ignore this screen because it only exists when you finish the GRADE SETUP WIZARD and won't usually be how you typically add grade categories and grade items.
Select MANAGE GRADE tab from the list of options under the course nav bar.
Have your Course Evaluation Criteria from your syllabus available for reference
Step 1: Access Grade Category tool
Click on the NEW button and select CATEGORY from the drop down menu.
Step 2: Create a Category
- Select the first category listed in the Course Evaluation Criteria on your syllabus. From my example, the first category will be HOMEWORK
- Skip the Short Name field
- Description- You can add a description of the category if you want to or you can leave it blank.
- Grading- Weight Input the weight this category will have in the final grade for the course.
- Grading-Distribution Most people use the third option: 'Distribute weight evenly across all items'.
- SAVE AND NEW- if you have other categories to create, then select the SAVE AND NEW button.
Once you have created all the categories, then select the SAVE AND CLOSE button
You can drop a certain number of items within this category automatically by adding a number to the Number of lowest non-bonus items to drop for each user. If you enter 1, then Brightspace will drop the lowest grade item in this category for each student.
If your Final Calculated Grade does not equal 1005, you will see a note at the top of the page once you finish creating your grade categories. So you can edit the category by selecting the drop down arrow next to the name of the category on the table.
Creating Grade Items in Brightspace is creating columns in the gradebook- these items can be collected in Brightspace (called Assignments, Quizzes, or Discussions) or these can be based on presentations, papers you collected physically from students, etc.
Step 1: Access Grade Item tool
Select the NEW button below the course nav bar and then select ITEM from the drop-down menu that appears.
Step 2: Select Grade Item Type
Choose a Grade Item Type- select NUMERIC for most columns in the grade book
Step 3: Complete PROPERTIES TAB for a New Item.
- Name: Type in the name of a grade item you will be using in your course.
- Category- Select in which grade category this particular grade item belongs. For my example, the grade item Homework 1 belongs to the Homework category
- Description- If you want to put in an description of what exactly this grade item represents, then you can type it in this area. For example, describe that Homework 1
- Maximum Points: Many people like to have items be out of 100 like a percentage. But you can have every grade item is a category be worth a different number of points. And Brightspace can still weight each item equally.
- Weight- This field should be auto-filled if you selected 'Distribute weight equally across all grade items' when building the category.
- Can exceed- will you let students exceed the maximum number of points for this grade item. For example, will you let students earn more than a 100%?
- Bonus- A bonus grade item does not have to be completed. Student will earn points if they do complete it but will not earn a zero if it is not completed.
- SAVE AND NEW- if you have more grade items to create, you can save a step by selecting SAVE AND NEW.
Grade items can be added any time throughout the term.
We do not recommend completing the RESTRICTIONS TAB for Grade Items Please contact [email protected] for more information.
