Grading Assignments: Electronic Feedback

This help sheet assumes that you have created an Assignment in your Blackboard course as described in the related document, Creating an Assignment, that you have downloaded student assignment submissions to your hard drive, as explained in the help sheet, Downloading Completed Assignments, and that you have graded the assignments - either on paper or online. You are now ready to enter the assignment grades into Blackboard, so your students can see their grades, along with any feedback you might provide. To enter those assignment grades into the Gradebook:

  1. In the "Assessment" area of the Control Panel, click on the Gradebook link:

    Grade Book Link

  2. You will see your Gradebook in spreadsheet form, with your students listed in the left column (25 students per page), and with all of your currently created assessments (assignments, quizzes, etc.) listed in the top row. If your assignment was truly created as an Assignment (and not just as an item in the Assignment section of your course), there will be an entry for the Assignment in your Gradebook. In the column for the specific Assignment, there will be an exclamation point in the appropriate row of each student who has submitted his/her assignment, indicating that the assignment has been submitted and needs grading on your part.

    How you record student grades will depend on how you provide feedback to students. From here, follow the branch of instructions that pertain to you:

    1. Instructions for faculty members who provide feedback on paper and just want to record grades in Blackboard
    2. Instructions for faculty members who provide electronic feedback or want to record comments in Blackboard


    3. Instructions for Faculty Members who Provide Electronic Feedback or Want to Record Comments in Blackboard

  3. If you want to provide specific feedback to each student within Blackboard, or if you grade submitted work electronically by providing inline comments (or by appending notes at various points in a document), then you'll need to upload the student grades into Blackboard one student at a time.

    Click on the exclamation point in the column for the first student whose grade on the Assignment you wish to enter:

    Grade Individual Assignment

  4. You will be taken to a Modify Grade page with summary information about the assignment in the top section of the page, along with what looks like a single row from a spreadsheet (with column headings) in the bottom section of the page, listing the information Blackboard currently has about the student's submitted assignment. Click on the View button to load a page you can use to submit/upload your comments:

    View Student Assignment Details

  5. Scroll down to the Feedback to User section of the "Grade Assignment" page. You'll see boxes that will allow you to enter the student's grade for the assignment (marked as "1" in the figure below), provide brief summary comments (in the box marked as number "2" below), and also upload a file - if you've graded the assignment electronically by adding comments to the student's file and saving the commented version under a new name:

    Provide Feedback to Student

  6. To upload the file (if you've created such a file), click on the Browse button (see number "3" in the figure above), find your commented version of the student's original file on your hard drive (if that's where you saved the file), and double-click on the file name to select the file. The path to the file will now appear in the "Attach local file" window:

    Attach File With Instructor Comments

  7. There is a fourth section on the page - entitled Instructor Notes - that you can use to record private notes about the student's work. The student will not see those notes when s/he is reviewing the grade in Blackboard.

  8. When you're done entering the particular student's grade, click on the Submit Button button to send your changes to the server, and then click on the OK Button button to return to the Modify Grade page.

  9. You'll now see all the feedback and grade that you entered, along with all the previous information Blackboard showed you about the student's Assignment submission. In the Status column, you'll see "Completed" (rather than the original "Needs Grading". Click on the Submit Button button again to record the grade in Blackboard, and click on the OK Button button to return to your Gradebook.

  10. Repeat steps three through nine above to record the grade for each of the students in your class.

  11. When you're done entering grades in Blackboard, click on the OK Button button to return to the Control Panel for your course.

    12. Last revised May 31, 2007.  Please send questions or comments to itec@bucknell.edu.