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Brightspace Staff Support

How to create a Grade Item

In order to have an assignment pull through to the 'Gradebook', a 'Grade Item' needs to be set up. The grade item is the link between the two. Therefore, all summative assignments should have a grade item so that the scores pull through to the grades area. Formative assignments should not.

You can create the grade items before the assignments by following these steps, or during the creation of assignments when given the option of 'new grade item'.

1. Select 'Assessment' from the navbar.

2. Select 'Grades'.

select assessment and grades

 

3. Select the 'Manage Grades' tab.

select manage grades

4. Select the 'New' dropdown menu.

5. Select 'Item'.

select new item

6. The majority of grade items will be numeric, so select that.

select numeric

7. Enter the name of the assessment to be graded into the 'name' box.

8. The short name is optional. Don't worry about this unless the name of the grade item is very long.

9. If you have separated the grade items into categories, you can put it into a category here, or make a new category. Categories can themselves take up a certain weighting of the overall marks for the module. (For example, you might have a category called 'Essays', which comprises 50% of the module weighting, and four grade items within this category for each summative essay). As with the 'weighting' option (step 11), this will need to be set in accordance with the module specification.

10. The 'Maximum Points' box should nearly always be set to 100.

11. Enter the assessment component’s weight (component weighting can usually be located in the module descriptor in the course handbook).

12. Leave 'can exceed', 'bonus' and 'grade scheme' as they are.

13. If a rubric is attached to this assessment, you could add it here.

more grade item options

14. Under 'Display Options', make sure that the options to display class average, distribution, and the override settings are not checked.

grade item display options

15. Scroll back to the top of the page and click on the “Restrictions” tab.

restrictions tab

16. Select “Hide from Users” (this will mean the whole grade item is not visible to students until the module leader chooses to release the grades and feedback)

17. Click “Save and Close”.

hide the grade item from users

If you did this while creating the assignment, you continue with the rest of the steps to create the assignment.

If you created the grade item before the assignment, all you will need to do is select the grade item at the relevant point when you create the assignment.

If the assignment was already created, you can attach it to the grade item by doing so under 'Edit Assignment'. (Select 'Assessment' from the navbar, select 'Assignments', select the dropdown arrow by the relevant assignment, select 'Edit Assignment'.)