Categorize Grades Items

Grade items in the Grade Center can be classified by different categories. You can sort the Grade Center by categories. You can create Smart Views to display grades of certain categories. For example, you can have the Grade Center display just the test grades. You can also calculate grades by categories. For example, you can calculate the average of all the test grades.

By Default, the Grade Center provides four categories: Assignment, Discussion, Survey, and Test. When you created assignments, discussion board content items, surveys and/or tests in the content area, the grade columns of these items will be assigned to the corresponding default category.

If you manually created a grade column in the Grade Center, you must assign desired category to the column in the Add Grade Column page. If you did not select a desired column, the grade item will be classified as “No Category”.

Follow these steps to modify a category:

1. In the Control Panel area, under the Assessment area, click the Grade Center link.

2. In the Grade Center, click the Action Link button next to Manage in the Action Bar. Click the Organize Grade Center link.

3. The Organize Grade Center page will appear. Click to select the grade items which you want to categorize by clicking on the checkboxes. Click the Action Link next to Modify Category. Choose desired category that you want to change to from the drop down menu. The category of the grade item will be changed. Click the Submit button when done.

Notes:

· Tests that were created in earlier Blackboard versions and imported with the course will be assigned the “Exam” category, while the tests that are created in version 8 will be classified under the “Test” category. To put all the tests under Test category, you need to change the category of the imported test from “Exam” to “Test”.

Follow these steps to create a new customized category:

1. In the Grade Center, click the Action Link button next to Manage in the Action Bar. Click the Categories link.

2. The Categories page will appear. Click the Add Category button to create your own customized category.

3. The Add Category page will appear. Enter the name of the category and type a description, if desired. Click the Submit button when done.

4. You will return to the Categories page. The new category that you have just created will be displayed here. Click the OK button when done.

5. You will return to the Grade Center. You can either assign the new category to the grade column while you are creating a manually added column. (Click the Create Grade Columns Where You Can Manually Enter Grades link here for more information.) Or, you can change the category of a grade item into the new category by following the Steps to Modify a Category above.