Grading Assignments: Recording Grades Only

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 Feedback on Paper and Just Want to Record Grades in Blackboard

  4. If you've graded the assignments and provided feedback on paper, and you just want to record the grades within Blackboard so that your students have easy access to the information, you can do so very efficiently by clicking on the name of the Assignment in the Gradebook (in the title row of the spreadsheet) to open an "Item Options" page:

    Clicking on Assignments Title

  5. Click on the Item Grade List link, which is the first link on the Item Options page:

    Item Grade List

  6. You will see another spreadsheet-like display, with a top section that lists the information about the assignment:

    View Item Grades: Top Section

    You'll need to pay attention to the Display As field at the top of the page - marked as number 1 in the figure above. Blackboard will expect you to enter grades of the same type as specified in that field. In other words, if the display option for the grades is "Score" (the default option), Blackboard will expect you to enter numbers into the Grade boxes. If you type in something that isn't a number, Blackboard will respond with an error message. You'll also want to pay attention to the Points Possible field (marked as number 2 in the figure above), so you have a sense of your grading scale for that item.

    If you are weighting your grades (instructions open in new window), you should see a value other than zero for the weight (marked with a 3 in the figure above); otherwise, you'll need to change the category for this item (if you are weighting by category) or redo your weightings (if you are weighting by item). You should also check the settings listed here: in other words, whether this assignment grade is "Available to Users" - that is, whether students can see this grade when they view their grades - and whether the score should be included in final grade calculations (both marked with a 4, above).

  7. In the Manual Grade column of the spreadsheet, double-click on the exclamation point to highlight it, and enter the grade that you want to give to the first student in the list:

    Enter Grades

  8. Continue entering the grades for all students whose assignments you have graded by double-clicking on the exclamation point and typing in the appropriate score/grade for each student.

    Please note that there are three very confusing columns in that spreadsheet: Current Grade, Manual Grade, and Override. The "Current Grade" is the grade that students will see when they view their grades in Blackboard. Usually, that value is the same as the value in the "Manual Grade" column. However, Blackboard added the capability of "overriding" a grade, so that you are basically keeping track of two grades: the grade you originally gave (in the "Manual Grade" column) and a different (curved?) grade (in the Override column). Most of the time (with assignments), you will just use that Manual Grade column, and you can consider that the place where you enter your grades for each student.

    Once you've finished entering the grades, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the Submit Button button to send your changes to the server.

  9. Blackboard will confirm that the grades have been successfully updated - even if the actual message is in the singular ("Grade successfully updated"). Click on the OK Button button to return to the Gradebook for your course. You should see the grades you entered in the appropriate column in the Gradebook.


Last revised May 30, 2007.  Please send questions or comments to itec@bucknell.edu.