Ultra Gradebook
To access the Gradebook click the Gradebook link at the top of the screen.
The Gradebook has four views: Overview, Student, Gradable Items, and Grades. you can click on the desired view name to switch to that view.
The Overview tab has a list of all items that need to be graded and/or posted.
If you choose Gradable Items, the view will just show a list of all the gradable items (ex assignments, tests, etc). You can click on the assignment to grade it for all students.
If you are looking at Students, the list will change to show all the students. You can click on an individual student to view and edit all that student's grades.
Grades view is more like a traditional gradebook. You'll see your students as rows and the assignments in columns.
To grade a student's work for a specific assignment, you can click the View button in the appropriate cell. After you grade a student's work, you'll need to post the grade so that they can see it. Click the grade and choose Post.
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 simply type the grade into the cell.]
To post all grades for a particular assignment, click the assignment name at the top of that assignment’s column and choose Post.
Adding Columns
Just like with the original Grade Center, any tests or assignments collected in Scholar automatically get columns. 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 Gradable Items view or the Grades 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 button at the bottom 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% |
In the original Grade Center’s default of 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 Students tab.
Click on the relevant 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.