Set up Course Grade Settings in the Gradebook

Course grade settings determine how the gradebook appears for all participants in the course. Settings and preferences do not affect how grades are calculated. Just remember to click the Save changes button anytime you make a change to a default setting.

The Course grade settings can be accessed through Grades > Setup> Course grade settings tab.

course grade settings

General/Grade item/Overview report settings User report settings

The General settings and Grade item settings affect the overall gradebook. The Overview Report setting determines how the gradebook appears for course editors in the course.

General settings:

  • Aggregation position: This setting determines whether the category and course total columns are displayed first or last in the gradebook reports.

    • (Default) Min and max grades as specified in grade item settings: The student's grade will be displayed out of the new range and this will affect their percentage.
    • Initial min and max grades: The student's grades are displayed with the range that was defined at the time the student was graded.
      • Example:

        • The assignment is created with a maximum grade of 10
        • Sally Student receives a score of 5 out of 10 (50%)
        • The assignment maximum grade is changed to 20

        If "Min and max grades used in calculation" is set to "Min and max grades as specified in grade item settings," Sally Student will have a score of 5 out of 20 (25%)

        If "Min and max grades used in calculation" is set to "Initial min and max grades", Sally Student will have a score of 5 out of 10 (50%) until a teacher manually regrades Sally Student out of 20.

        Min and max grades used in the calculation: When grading in the CLE, either in an activity or directly in the gradebook, you assign the student a score from a specified range. By default, the minimum score is 0, and the maximum score can be configured when adding the grade items into the CLE.  The Min and max grades used in calculation controls how the grade will be displayed if the maximum or minimum grades are changed after a student has been graded.

 Grade item settings

  • Grade display type: This setting determines how grades are displayed in the grader and user reports. 
    • Letter: Letters are used to represent a range of grades, as defined in the "Letters" tab of the gradebook.
    • Percentage: Relative to maximum and minimum grades 
    • Real: Actual grades or scale values. 
  • Overall decimal places: This setting determines the number of decimal places to display for each grade.

Overview report 

  • Show rank: This setting only affects the grader report that course editors see. The default setting is Hide. If changed to Show, course editors will be able to see the rank concerning the rest of the class for each grade item.
  • Hide totals if they contain hidden items: This setting specifies whether totals that contain hidden grade items are shown to students or replaced with a hyphen (-).
    • Hide: This is the default setting, which will hide category totals and all grade items total (shown as a hyphen "-") from students if a grade item within that category is hidden. 
    • Show totals excluding hidden items: Students will see the category totals and all grade items totals with the hidden items NOT taken into calculation. In this case, the totals course editors see will be different from the total seen by the students since the teacher always sees totals calculated from all items, hidden or unhidden.
    • Show totals including hidden items: Students will see the category totals and all grade items totals even if a grade item is hidden.  This option allows students to calculate the hidden items. 
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