The Gradebook

Table of Contents

1. Accessing the Gradebook
2. Totals
3. Attendance
   1. Editing Attendance
   2. Excusing a Student (Attendance)
   3. Attendance Summary & Reports
   4. Delete Attendance Session
   5. Manually Adding Attendance Entries
   6. Student View
4. Manually Adding Grade Columns
   1. Student view
5. Course Content
6. Applying Custom Grading to Pages Items
7. Pages with Custom Grading
8. Viewing Averages & Sorting Grades
   1. Averages
   2. Sorting Grades
9. Generating Reports
   1. Attendance Report
   2. Question Reports
   3. Student Reports
10. Changing the Gradebook Display
    1. Total Scores
    2. Participation and Correctness
11. Calculating Averages
12. Exporting Missed / Unassigned Grades
13. Selective Display
14. Exporting the Gradebook
15. Exporting Responses to Individual Questions
16. Exporting Responses in Bulk
17. How to change Grade Release Settings
    1. Option 1
    2. Option 2
18. Leaving Feedback for Students (Individual)
    1. From the Gradebook Grid
    2. From the Question or Student Report
19. Leaving Feedback for Students (Whole Class)
    1. From the Gradebook Grid
    2. From the Question Report
20. Viewing Feedback as a Student

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Accessing the Gradebook

Open your course and select "Gradebook" from the available three tabs. Any content items which contain grades are displayed in the same order as the course content tree.

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Totals

Student Totals are located in the first column directly to the right of the Student Name. Student Totals are an aggregate of the gradable content located in the Gradebook (current view). Editing the columns visible in the Gradebook will recalculate the total aggregate for students.

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Attendance

Attendance is located in the next column immediately to the right of the Totals. Expanding the menu will display each attendance session organized by date. Using the image below, this course has taken attendance on both July 16th and May 24th.

Editing Attendance

To edit a student's attendance grade:

• Locate the student.
• Locate the Date.
• Double-click the grade you wish to update.
• Make the required changes. Closing the modal will save the changes automatically.

Excusing a Student (Attendance)

Excusing a student from an attendance session will change the denominator of their overall attendance record (in accord with how many attendance sessions they have been excused from).

A window will display prompting you to choose whether to excuse the student from all other questions asked on the same day (only available within 3 hours of asking Attendance).

The Class Average is automatically recalculated based on excused items.

Attendance Summary & Reports

To open an Attendance Summary:

• Locate the Attendance date in the Gradebook.
• Select the Column Options Icon.
• View the information displayed in the modal.

To open an Attendance Report:

• Select the date in the Attendance column, OR
• Select "View Attendance Report" from within the column options modal.

Delete Attendance Session

To delete an Attendance Session:

• Navigate to the Attendance Session to be deleted.
• Open the Column Options modal.
• Select "Delete Attendance Records".

Manually Adding Attendance Entries

Click the blue Add entry button above the Gradebook grid.

In the modal that appears, make sure the Attendance option is selected. Input the date and time of the attendance session that you wish to insert and click Add.

The entry will appear as a new individual attendance session column in your Gradebook grid. By default, all students will be marked as present in the newly added attendance session. You can then manually adjust the record for the new entry by double-clicking into the cells to document any absences (excused or otherwise) as well as add any attendance comments.

Student View

In the student view of the Gradebook, manually added attendance sessions appear the same as those taken using the Top Hat attendance functionality.

For more information on how attendance grades appear in the student view of the Gradebook, refer to the following support article: Student: The Gradebook.

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Manually adding grade columns

Click the blue Add entry button above the Gradebook grid.

In the modal that appears, select the Grade option. Input a title and a grade scheme for the column you wish to add. In the default grading settings, you can choose to have student grades unassigned or set to a custom point value. Click Add to insert the column in your Gradebook.

The column will appear within a Manual Grades folder aligned farthest right in your Gradebook grid. To edit or add comments to any of the grades, click into the cell and make the necessary changes in the modal that appears. If default grades for the column were set to Unassigned, each student will have a null entry in the column when it is added to the Gradebook. You will have to input each student's grade for the assessment manually after the column is added to your Gradebook.

If default grades for the column were set to Custom points, every student will receive that point value in the column when it is added to the Gradebook.

Note the reports view is unavailable for columns added to the Manual Grades folder.

Student view

In the student view of the Gradebook, the manually added item will be listed in-line with other entries in the Gradebook. In the Answer field, it will be indicated that no response was required of the student in Top Hat.

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Course Content

To the right of the Attendance column, instructors will find columns for any gradable course content item (i.e., standalone questions as well as Pages, Tests, and folders containing questions) that has been presented or assigned and received at least one response.

Course content columns in the Gradebook are organized to reflect their order in the course content tree.

To reveal grade columns for questions within an individual Page, Test, or folder, instructors must click Open on the column header. To reveal grade columns for all course content items within folders, instructors can click the folder icon in the upper-right of the Gradebook.

To edit a student's grade for an individual question, instructors must double-click the corresponding cell or hover their cursor over it and click the pencil icon that appears.

A modal will expand from the cell showing the question and the student's answer. Instructors can hide and reveal the modal by clicking the blue clipboard icon above the cell (shown in the image below).

Instructors can exit the modal by clicking away or hitting the Enter or Esc keys on their keyboard.

Instructors can type into the editable cells containing the participation and correctness grade point values to change a student's grade for a question. Instructors can use the Enter key on their keyboard to tab through editable cells to modify numerous students' grades efficiently.

To retroactively edit the grade weight of a question, instructors must click the column header for the question and select Adjust weights. In the modal that appears, instructors can edit the Correctness and Participation weights for the question (represented by their denominators).

Select "Save" to lock in the adjusted weights. The grades for that question will take a few moments to recalculate.

Adjust the weights as needed and select save. The Gradebook may take a brief moment to refresh and recalculate.

To remove a question from the Gradebook, instructors must expand the folder that contains the question, click the column header of the question they wish to remove, and select Delete Grades from the modal that appears.

Instructors should note that they can only delete questions from the Gradebook that are standalone in their course's content tree (that is, the question is not embedded within a Page or Test).

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Applying Custom Grading to Pages Items

To apply custom grading to a Pages item, open your course's Content section. Select the Page you'd like to modify in the content tree and click Adjust Points in the preview pane.

In the window that appears, you can modify the total grade value of the Page. This allows the Page's score to be weighted differently relative to other graded content in your course. You can also use the Reset to Default button to revert to the sum of individual question weights.

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Pages with Custom Grading

If an instructor has applied Custom Grading Weight to a Pages item, they will see this reflected at the total score level for the Page. However, if they expand the column for a custom-weighted Pages item to show the scores of the individual questions within, the scores on the questions will not reflect the custom weighting for the Page.

It is important to note that, although the application of Custom Grading changes the overall value of the Page, the value of the individual questions within the Page does not change. If you were to open the Page in an editable view, you would find that the embedded questions have the same individual grade weights that they did prior to the application of Custom Grading. In other words, the Page itself becomes worth more (or less) relative to the other items in the course, but the questions within the Page never actually change their value.

This approach is designed to visually reduce confusion for complex re-weightings and is best illustrated by an example:

Say an instructor has a Pages item that contains 7 questions, each worth 1 point. The Page is thus worth 7 points in total. If they were to adjust the total points for the Page to 10, each question within the Page would be scaled up to reflect this, making each question worth 1.42857143 points. Rather than display the per-question score with a denominator of 1.42857143:

• Each question score will display as unscaled, with a denominator of 1.
• The total Page score will display as scaled to reflect the custom weighting, with a denominator of 10.

Instructors can see individual question scores at their scaled value by exporting their Gradebook to a .csv file.

In sum, although the individual question scores display as unscaled in the Top Hat Gradebook, they factor into the total Page grade at the scaled weight.

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Viewing Averages & Sorting Grades

Instructors can use averages and the built-in sorting functionality to easily surface high-level insights into their students' performance.

Averages

Instructors will find their total course average directly above the Gradebook grid. Average scores for each graded item are shown at the top of each column in the Gradebook, making it easy to pinpoint classes with low attendance or participation as well as questions that students may have struggled with.

The colours in the average bars change based on how high the average is (red for averages < 50%, yellow for averages between 50% and 75%, and green for averages > 75%). These averages will be reflected if an instructor expands the folder and Page level columns to look at the grades of the individual items within.

Similarly, if an instructor adjusts their Gradebook display to show correctness and participation in separate columns, the average for each will display at the top of the separated column.

Average Participation is calculated relative to the number of students enrolled in a course. Average Correctness is calculated relative to only those students that attempted the question.*

To illustrate, consider the following example of a question broken down into Participation and Correctness columns.

For the sake of this example, assume this course has 200 enrolled students. The question has a participation weight of 0.5 points. Therefore, the Average Participation score of 0.46/0.5 means that 184 of the course's 200 students answered this question. Now consider Correctness. This question has a correctness weight of 0.5 points. The Average Correctness score of 0.25/0.5 is relative only to the 184 students that participated in the question. Since 0.25/0.5 is equivalent to 1/2, we can deduce that 92 of the 184 students that answered the question got it correct.**

*Note: If you would like Average Correctness to be calculated relative to all students enrolled in the course, including those that missed the question(s), you can adjust this setting in the Customize menu (read on for details).

**Note: The explanation of the example above assumes that no partial participation or correctness points were awarded to any students for this question. For information on how to edit grades to award partial points to students, see the "Course Content" section above.

Sorting Grades

To sort grades, instructors can simply click the header of the column that contains the grades they would like to sort. After clicking the header, instructors can choose to sort the grades in the column from highest to lowest or lowest to highest.

This sorting function can be applied to any graded item including individual questions, attendances, Pages, folders, and course totals.

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Generating Reports

For a more focused view of specific aspects of the Gradebook, instructors can generate the following reports:

• Attendance Reports
• Question Reports
• Student Reports

Attendance Report

For a more detailed view of a specific attendance session, instructors can view an individual session's Attendance Report. To access a session's Attendance Report, instructors must hover over the attendance average column header and click the blue report icon. Alternatively, they can select View Attendance Report from the modal that appears after clicking the date column header.

In the Attendance Report, instructors can view the details of each student's entry for the session, including record (Attended, Absent or Excused), comments, and response time. Summary information for the session, including total attendance, can be found at the top of the report.

The report can be sorted by student name, record, and response time. Students' attendance records can be edited in the report. Comments can also be added or edited directly in the report.

To change the title of an attendance session, instructors must click the Edit button next to the title of the report (which is by default the date and time the attendance was taken), add the desired title, and click Save.

The new title of the attendance session will be reflected in the column header of that session when the instructor exits the report and returns to the grid view of the Gradebook.

Instructors can also export attendance comments as a .csv file by clicking Export Comments at the top of the report.

Instructors can use the arrow keys at the top of the report to navigate to the report for the previous or next attendance session (corresponding to the adjacent columns in the Gradebook) or click Close to exit the Attendance Report entirely.

Question Reports

For a more detailed view of students' grades and responses to a specific question, instructors can generate Question Reports for individual questions.

To generate a Question Report, instructors can hover over the total score column header for the question and click the blue report icon. Alternatively, instructors can select View Question Report from the modal that appears after clicking the question title column header.

In the Question Report, instructors can view the details of each student's response, grade, and response time. Summary information for the question, including average scores, can be found at the top of the report.

The report can be sorted by student name, grade (participation, correctness, or total), and response time. Students' grades for a question can be edited directly in the report.

For most question types, instructors can view students' responses directly in the Response column of the report. For some question types, instructors may need to click to view the response in a separate window. For example, a student's response to a Click-on-Target question is shown in a separate window to show exactly where the student clicked on the image.

To export responses in a .csv file, instructors must click Export Responses at the top of the Question Report. Instructors should note that responses to Click-on-Target questions are exported as coordinates.

Instructors can use the arrow keys at the top of the report to navigate to the report for the previous or next question (corresponding to the adjacent columns in the Gradebook) or click Close to exit the Question Report entirely.

Student Reports

Instructors can generate reports for individual students by hovering over their names in the student list (the leftmost column of the Gradebook) and clicking the blue report icon that appears.

Summary information is listed at the top of a Student Report, including student account information (name, ID, and email), attendance record, the total number of questions answered, the total number of correctly answered questions, and average scores segmented by participation and correctness.

In the Questions tab of a Student Report, the student's responses, response times, and grades for each question are listed.

This section of the report can be sorted by the question, grade, and response time. The search bar can also be used to locate individual questions in the report. Scores for individual questions can be edited directly in the report as well.

In the Attendance tab of a Student Report, the student's attendance record is listed, including comments and response times. This section of the report can be sorted by session, record, and response time.

A student's record for any given attendance session can be edited directly in the report. Attendance comments can also be adjusted or added to the Student Report.

Instructors can export a student's responses as a .csv file by clicking Export Responses at the top of the report.

They can also use the arrow keys at the top of the Student Report to navigate to the report for the next student in sequence (corresponding to the adjacent rows in the Gradebook) or click Close to exit the Student Report entirely.

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Changing the Gradebook Display

To change their Gradebook display, instructors must first click Customize on the right side of their Gradebook. This does not apply to the Student Gradebook.

From the menu that extends, instructors can adjust settings to customize how the data in their Gradebook is displayed.

Total Scores

Selecting Use points will display all scores as raw points, whereas selecting Use percentage will display every total score (i.e. cumulative totals, folder totals, page totals, test totals) as a percentage. Note, if an instructor has selected Use percentage, individual items (questions, discussions, attendance sessions) will continue to be displayed in points to allow for easy editing.

Participation and Correctness

Selecting Combine values will show totals for graded items as a composite of the participation and correctness scores for each item. Selecting Separate values will disaggregate the total of each item into distinct participation and correctness columns.

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Calculating Averages

Instructors can use this setting to adjust how average Correctness is calculated throughout their Gradebook. Selecting Ignore students with no answer will calculate average correctness relative to only those students that answered the question. Selecting Count students with no answer as 0 will calculate average correctness relative to all students enrolled in the course, including those that missed the question(s).

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Exporting Missed / Unassigned Grades

Selecting Export grades as "--" will cause grades for any questions that students missed or never had assigned to them to appear as "--" in the corresponding cell of the spreadsheet that is generated when the Gradebook is exported. Selecting Export grades as "0" will cause those same grades to appear as zeroes in the exported Gradebook spreadsheet.

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Selective Display

From the Customize menu, instructors also can selectively display specific columns in their Gradebook. This functionality is useful in instances where instructors only want to view and/or export a certain subset of their grade data. For example, consider a case where an instructor only wants to view grades for reading assignments. They can use the selective display functionality to factor out all graded content except the reading assignments.

To utilize selective display, instructors must open the Customize menu and click View at the top of the menu.

They will see all of the graded content in their course listed in the menu. If an instructor has folders of course content in their Gradebook, they can collapse and expand these folders in the Customize menu the same way they can by clicking the column headers in the main Gradebook table.

The first time an instructor enters the View section of the Customize menu, all of the graded items will be selected by default. De-selecting any graded items from the list will remove the corresponding column from the main Gradebook table.

The overall class average will also be re-calculated based on the graded items that have been removed from the display.

The re-calculation process can take a few moments, based on how much graded content you have in your Gradebook.

To restore any removed columns, instructors must re-select the item in the Customize menu. To restore all removed columns, instructors can also click Select all at the top of the menu.

Clicking Hide all will remove all columns from the Gradebook (for instances where it would be simpler to re-select all of the items an instructor wants to view/export instead of de-selecting all of the items they do not want to view/export).

Instructors should note that columns that they hide and reveal in their view of the Gradebook are not reflected in their students' view of the Gradebook.

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Exporting the Gradebook

Educators can click the Export button above the Gradebook grid to download their Gradebook as a .csv file to their device.

The export will mirror their Gradebook view at the time that they click Export, so collapsed columns (such as the attendance column in the image below) will show totals rather than the breakdown, whereas expanded columns will export the data from the items nested within.

In addition to the content displayed in their Gradebook grid, the export will also include columns containing your students' email addresses and student IDs.

Top Hat courses belonging to institutions that have partnered with Top Hat will show an additional option in the Gradebook to sync grades directly with the institution's Learning Management System (LMS). This will push students' grades to the instructor's LMS according to the LMS Sync options they have configured in their Course Settings.

Instructors can find more details on Top Hat LMS integrations in the following articles:

• LTI 1.3: Start Here!
• Educator: Advanced Canvas Integration
• Educator: Advanced Blackboard Integration
• Educator: Advanced D2L Integration
• Educator: Advanced Moodle Integration
• Educator: Advanced Sakai Integration

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Exporting Responses to Individual Questions

To export students' responses to questions, instructors must click the column header of the question for which they would like to export the responses. In the box that appears, they then must click Export responses.

This will export the responses to the question as a .csv file along with the following information: First Name, Last Name, Email, Student ID, Date and Time Submitted.

This functionality is useful for instructors looking for focused, qualitative insights into their students' performance. Instructors should note that responses to Click-on-Target questions are exported as coordinates.

Instructors can also export responses from the Question Report. Select "Export Responses" in the upper right corner. The .csv file will download to your computer.

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Exporting Responses in Bulk

To export student responses for multiple questions, instructors must click the downward pointing arrow next to the Export button and select the Grades and Responses option. The export will prepare and then be made available to download as an .xls file.

In the exported file, instructors must select the Question Answers tab to reveal students' responses to each question.

If an instructor wishes to export responses to some but not all of the questions in their Gradebook, they must hide the columns that they do not wish to export responses for via the Customize menu before exporting. Instructors should note that responses to the following question types cannot currently be exported in bulk:

• Sorting
• Formula
• Long Answer
• Multi-version
• Third-party (Graph Response, Chemistry Response, and Chemistry Drawing)

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How to change Grade Release Settings

There are two grade release settings you can select from for items that you assign in your Top Hat course.

Option 1:

Only display grades of items for which the due date has passed or are not currently being presented. Any items assigned to students as Homework will not release grades. This is the default setting.

Option 2:

Display grades for all items (including those with a future due date and those being presented). Students will have instant access to their grades. Often referred to as Live Gradebook. With "Live Gradebook" enabled, students will be able to see their grades instantly for:

• Questions included in a presentation
• Standalone questions
• Assignments/Questions on a Page
• Tests

Support Article: Educator: Course Settings - Grading Menu

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Leaving Feedback for Students (Individual)

There are two locations in the Gradebook from which an instructor can leave feedback for a student's response to a question:

• From the Gradebook grid
• From the Question or Student Report

From the Gradebook Grid

Instructors must first expand the cell in the Gradebook grid corresponding to the student's response that they would like to provide feedback for, either by clicking the pencil icon in the cell or double-clicking the cell.

Instructors will see the option to leave feedback at the bottom of the modal that expands from the selected cell. Instructors can click Leave feedback for students and then type their feedback in the text field that appears. They can then click Save to lock in their feedback (at which point it will become visible in the student's Gradebook). To edit or remove individual feedback from the Gradebook grid, instructors can simply click back into the cell of the corresponding student response.

For more information on viewing and editing grades via the Gradebook grid, instructors can refer to the following article: Educator: Gradebook Overview > Navigating and Editing the Gradebook.

From the Question or Student Report

Instructors must click the three stacked dots aligned to the right of a student's response in the report and select Leave feedback from the menu that appears.

A modal will pop up in the centre of the screen containing a text field into which the instructor can type their comment. They can then click Leave Feedback to lock in their comment (at which point it will become visible in the student's Gradebook).

To edit or remove individual feedback, instructors simply need to click Remove or Edit on the comment in the report or select the three stacked dots aligned to the right of a student's response and select Edit feedback from the menu that appears.

For more information on Questions and Student Reports, instructors can refer to the following article: Educator: Gradebook Overview > Generating Reports.

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Leaving Feedback for Students (Whole Class)

There are two locations in the Gradebook from which an instructor can leave feedback on a question for the entire class to see:

• From the Gradebook grid
• From the Question Report

From the Gradebook Grid

Instructors must click the column header corresponding to the question that they wish to leave class feedback for and select Leave feedback for class from the modal that appears. Instructors can then type their feedback in the field provided and click Save to lock in their comments (at which point they will become visible in students' Gradebooks).

To edit or remove class feedback from the Gradebook grid, instructors can simply click back into the header of the column for the corresponding question and select the trash can icon (to remove class feedback) or pencil icon (to edit class feedback).

For more information on viewing and editing grades via the Gradebook grid, instructors can refer to the following article: Educator: Gradebook Overview > Navigating and Editing the Gradebook.

From the Question Report

Instructors must click the Leave feedback for class button in the header of the Question Report.

A modal will pop up in the centre of the screen containing a text field into which the instructor can type their comments. They can then click Leave Class Feedback to lock in their comments (at which point they will become visible in students' Gradebooks).

To edit or remove class feedback, instructors simply need to click Remove or Edit on the comment in the report.

For more information on Question Reports, instructors can refer to the following article: Educator: Gradebook Overview > Generating Reports.

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Viewing Feedback as a Student

Feedback for students appears alongside the corresponding response in their Gradebook. Individual feedback will be indicated to students as "Private to you."

Feedback for the entire class will be indicated as "Overall class feedback."