Ultra Gradebook
To access the Gradebook click the Gradebook link at the top of the screen.
The Gradebook has two views: Grid and List. you can click on the toggle to switch between views.
List View (
Grid view (
To view a list of items that you need to grade and/or post, click the To Do button on the right side.
A panel will pop out with everything that needs to be graded and/or posted.
Clicking on the top of a column in Grid View gives you the Details panel for that column.
In this panel, you can:
Click on the name of the item to edit it
Click Grade to grade submissions, or View Submissions to view the submissions if all of them have been graded
Click “Post all grades” to post any grades
View all of the settings for the item
Clicking on a student’s grade brings up the Grade Details Panel.
You can see all information about the submission on the panel. You can also:
View the student’s submission by clicking “View submission”
Post ONLY the student’s grade by clicking on “Post individual grade”
Leave feedback with the Assessment Feedback button
Check or edit accomodations with the Accommodations button
If there’s no student work associated with the column, or if you’d like to give a grade based on some other criteria (late work, e-mailed new draft), you can hover over the cell with the grade and a pencil will appear. Click it to edit the grade.
Adding Columns
Any Tests or Assignments made and collected in Scholar automatically get columns in the Gradebook. You should NOT add gradebook columns for these items.
If you want to add a column for something that is collected outside of Scholar, hover where you'd like it in either the Grid view or the List View and click the plus sign.
Then choose "Add Item".
Once you do that, the column information popup will appear on the right. Give the column a name at the very top.
Next, you can control whether the column is visible to students and set a due date for the non-Scholar assignment. You can delete the due date to have no due date for the column.
Note: If a column is going to impact a students' final grade, we recommend that it be made visible to students in order to prevent confusion.
You can choose whether you're displaying the grade on percentage, points, or a letter, and how many total points the assignment will be.
Finally, choose the grade category that you want the assignment to be in. This is especially important with how the Ultra Gradebook does calculations. You can use the built-in categories, or ones you create in the settings. We’ll discuss custom grade categories later.
Click Save at the bottom and the column will be created.
Overall Gradebook Settings
To change the overall settings for the Gradebook, click the gear icon at the top right.
You can change the translation of percentages to letter grades by clicking the grade schema link. This can be useful if your class uses an unusual breakdown percentage-to-letter transitions, and if you plan on displaying grades to students as letter grades.
If you've set up an overall grade, you can set notifications to come to you and your students when their grade falls below a percentage you choose and/or they've been inactive for a certain amount of time.
You can have Scholar automatically assign zeroes to students that don't submit assignments by the listed due date. These grades can be updated later, and students with accommodations will not be penalized.
Click "Manage overall grade settings" to set up the overall grade. This will be discussed in a later section.
Gradebook Categories
Next you can control the categories in the Gradebook, which is particularly useful when setting up weights using Overall Grades (seen later in this document). Scholar has several built-in categories, but you can add your own by clicking Add New Category.
Type a name and press enter on your keyboard.
You can change the name of or delete a category that you created by clicking the three dots next to that category.
Overall Grade
If you haven't set up an overall grade for the course, there will be a banner at the top of your Gradebook. Otherwise, you can click the link in your Gradebook options.
Overall grades can be calculated by weighted percentages, total points, or advanced calculations. The first time you set up the overall grade, you'll be asked which you want to use--points-based grading, weighted grading, or an advanced calculation. If you want to use advanced calculations, please contact Academic Technologies for assistance.
Points-Based Grading
If you select points, the grade will be calculated based on the total points earned divided by the total points possible. Just like on Original courses, the default setting only counts those items that have been graded in the total. If you want to drop grades, you can do so by using categories.
If you have something that should not be part of the final grade, click the no sign to remove it.
Weighted Grading
The first thing that you have to choose is how grades within a category are calculated, Equally (this was the default in Original courses) or Proportionally.
For example, let's consider a category with two assignments, one worth 10 points and one worth 100 points
Assignment | Equally | Proportionally |
|---|---|---|
10 points | 5 points earned (50%) | 5 points earned |
100 points | 100 points earned (100%) | 100 points earned |
Overall Grade calculation | (50% + 100%) / 2 = 75% | (100 + 5) / 110 ~ 95% |
When using equal weighting within a category, you'd take the average of the percentages (pretty much disregarding the points possible). Averaging the two grades gives you 75%. In Ultra’s default of proportional weighting within a category, all points are added up, then divided by the total points possible, for an overall grade of about 95%.
To set the percentage weight of a category overall, enter them in the "Overall grade percentage" column.
Click the no sign to remove a category or column from the calculation.
Working With Categories
To drop grades from within a category, click "Edit calculation rules". If you have already set up a setting in this area, the name of the link will instead show the number of dropped grades, (Ex. "[#] scores dropped".)
Click the Enable toggle, click Drop Scores, and enter a number of scores to drop.
To remove an item from its category for grading purposes (Ex. An individual item like a Final Exam that has a separate weight of its own in your syllabus), click the Unlink button.
Display Type
To change how the overall grade looks to students, select the way you'd like it to look from "Select how the overall grade is displayed" at the left.
Make sure that “Calculate grades based on points earned out of total graded points” is checked. Otherwise any items that have not yet been graded in your gradebook are calculated as zeroes.
Checking if Students Have Viewed Feedback
Scholar will also report whether your students have viewed the feedback that you've left. To see whether a student has viewed your feedback, go into the Gradebook, then click on the name of the student.
Next to any assignment for which you've left feedback, you'll see an indicator of whether the feedback has been reviewed by the student.