Faculty Guide: Cleaning a Migrated Gradebook
If you are working in a course that was migrated from Blackboard into Brightspace, it is likely that your new gradebook needs a little TLC.
The first step is to run the Setup Wizard; you can find detailed instructions for this process on the Faculty Guide for Gradebook setup.
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Once that is completed, you are now ready to delete any duplicated or unlinked grade Items that have come across. Deleting these Items is essential for maintaining a transparent and accurate gradebook–remember that students see the same Items on their gradebook as you do and will wonder (and contact you!) about any Item not attached to course content.
The easiest place to see what you might need to remove is the Manage Grades tab in the Grades tool. Here you can see all grade items in list format, along with their Categories, Points, Weights, and Associations.
On the list of Grade Items, look for Items where the Association column is empty. These are Items in your gradebook but are unattached to any course content, and should be deleted. Remember, if these Items have points and/or weights, they will impact your grade calculations.
Next, scroll to the bottom of the Manage Grades page and locate any extra columns that were used in Blackboard to calculate final grades. These columns are no longer needed, as Brightspace completes these calculations in the Final Calculated Grade column according to how you set up your course (in Setup Wizard, Step One).
To delete any or all of these Items, open the More Actions menu, choose Delete, select the Items to be deleted, click on Delete & confirm.
Note: Brightspace will not allow you to delete a grade Item associated with Content, so you cannot accidentally delete and break an association, in spite of what the warning message may say.
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If there are Items in your gradebook that are associated with an Assignment, Quiz, or graded Discussion, you will not be able to delete them until you also delete the item itself (from the appropriate NavBar tool or from Content). You can hide these items so they do not appear on a student’s gradebook by opening the Category’s menu using the chevron and selecting Hide from Users. Remember, if hidden grade items have a points value and/or a weighted value, they will still be involved in your course’s grade calculations until they are deleted, or unless their points/weight are zeroed out (you can do this with the Edit option).
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Now that your gradebook does not contain any extra Items, check for proper setup of your Categories. Categories are delineated by a light blue colored background on the Manage Grades tab.
If you are using a Weighted Gradebook, please follow the instructions on the Faculty Guide for Weighted Gradebooks to set up and edit Categories.
If you are using a Points Gradebook, your Categories are optional and serve three potential purposes:
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Organization–grouping items into categories can make it easier for you to grade and for students to understand the gradebook;
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Capping point values for that Category–if you do (or don’t) want to allow any bonus points in the Category to go over the non-bonus total; and
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Dropping lowest (or highest) scores in the Category
To edit your Categories, open the Category’s menu using the chevron and select Edit. Under the Grades section, you can choose to allow that Category’s points to exceed the standard total (if you are giving bonus points in that Category, for example) by checking Can Exceed and you can choose to autodrop low scores for a select number of Items, if all Items are of equal value, by checking the Distribution box.
When you have returned to the Manage Grades tab, you can now rearrange your Items to be placed in any new Categories you have created or to move Items among Categories. The easiest way to do this is to check the boxes next to the Items of concern and then choose Bulk Edit. From this screen, you can place Items in their appropriate categories. You can also leave Items outside of Categories, if that makes sense for your grading setup.
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Now that your gradebook is clean, you’re ready to check the migrated content in your course–we recommend following CETAL’s Blackboard to Brightspace migration cleanup guidance to reduce backtracking and duplicating efforts.