Setting Up the Gradebook

This tutorial assists you in using the Gradebook Wizard to set up your gradebook to reflect the assessment criteria defined in your course syllabus. The first step in the wizard is to set up categories. The primary purpose of categories is to group assignments based on their impact on the overall grade. Typical categories might include projects, papers, quizzes, tests, etc. Each of these categories would be given a weight (point or percentage values) to determine how much impact it has on the overall grade for the course.

Before starting this assignment, please check your course to make sure assessment activities have been created under the Materials tab. Then use the following tutorial to set up your Gradebook.

1. Open your practice course
2. Click the Manage tab.
3. Click on the Gradebook link which is located on the left-hand-side of the screen under the "Course Management" header. The first time you access the Gradebook section, the Gradebook Wizard will be presented.

Note: The course gradebook can optionally be configures using the Gradebook Management tools which can be accessed from the course gradebook menu by clicking the [Skip Wizard] button. Refer to the Angel Instructor Reference Manual for information on manually configuring the course gradebook.

4. Select the grading mode appropriate for your course by clicking the appropriate radio button.
5. Then enter the title of the assignment or category as you would like it displayed in the course gradebook and student grade reporting the Title fields.
6. Then click on the drop-down arrow to the right of the Calculation field to select the appropriate calculation method from the Calculation options to determine whether the category average should be based the grade of all category assignments (Use all assignments) or a subset using the highest scored assignments (Use highest or Drop lowest).

Note: The Calculation Type option allows you to configure a category to drop lowest grade, or use highest n number of grades when calculating each student's category average. For example, by specifying "Use Highest" 10 for the Quizzes category, each student category average will be calculated based on their 10 highest quiz scores.

7. Click on the [Next >>] button. A list of course assignments will be displayed.
   
8. Select the assignments that you want to include in the gradebook. (Note: you can add additional items later.)
9. Click on the [Next >>] button.
   
10. Determine the category, points and calculation type for each item you selected in the previous step.
1. Category - Specifies the category the assignment is associated with.
2. Points - Specifies the number of points possible for the assignment.
3. Calculation Type Specifies how the assignment grade should be determined. The Calculation Type option is intended to be used in combination with the Associated Content Items option. If the gradebook assignment has one or more associated content items, then the Calculation Type option should be used to determine which content item grade should be used to update the gradebook assignment.
   
   Since many content items can be graded multiple times, and multiple content items can be associated with the same gradebook assignment, you have four options for obtaining a grade: Average Score, Maximum Score, First Submission, Last Submission, and Manual. Average Score uses an average of all scores submitted. Maximum Score uses the highest of all scores submitted. First Submission uses the first score submitted. Last Submission uses the last (most recent) score submitted. The calculation type of Manual requires the instructor to enter a score manually.
11. Click on the [Next >>] button. The Grading Scale page will be displayed.
    
12. The last step in the gradebook wizard is to set up a grading scale. The Grading scale is optional, If you have defined one for your course enter it at this time, else skip this step by clicking on the [Finish >>] button.

Enter/Edit Grades

1. Open your practice course
2. Click the Manage tab.
3. Click on the Gradebook link which is located on the left-hand-side of the screen under the "Course Management" header.
4. Click on the By Assignment hyperlink. The Enter Grades by Assignment page will be displayed.
5. Click on the assignment you want to edit. Click [Go] button.
6. Add a percentage grade for your first student. Angel will automatically calculate the points for the content item. You can optionally enter the point value and Angel will calculate the percentage. The "Locked" checkbox will automatically check.
7. Type any comments for the student's grade in the Comments section.
8. Click the [Save Changes] button.

Gradebook Management

Editing an Assignment

1. Open your practice course
2. Click the Manage tab.
3. Click on the Gradebook link which is located on the left-hand-side of the screen under the "Course Management" header.
4. Click on the Assignments hyperlink located under the "Gradebook Management" header.
5. Click the check boxes next to the content item(s) you want to edit. The [Show Tasks], [Edit Selected]' and [Delete Selected] buttons will be activated.
6. Click on the [Edit Selected] button. The Assignment Editor will be displayed at the bottom of the Assignments page.
7. You can now add a description, change the category, point value, display format and calculation type, or make the item extra credit.

Note: The impact of the extra credit on the overall grade is determined by the value specified in the Weight field. For points-based grading, select the Auto-calculate option to auto-calculate the weight of the extra credit category based on the point values of the extra credit assignments.

For percentage-based grading (weighted grading), type a percent value for the extra credit category to be used to calculate the highest possible percent score. For example, if you type 10 as the extra credit weight (in percent-based grading), students could potentially get up to 110% as their final score.

Specifying a Macro

1. Open your practice course
2. Click the Manage tab.
3. Click on the Gradebook link.
4. Click on the Macros hyperlink located under the "Gradebook Management" header.
5. Type a value of A+ in the Filter text box and 100 in the Percent text box.
6. Click the Save hyperlink.
   
   Note: The first time you enter the Macros option the first item you enter has to be saved. Additional items are added using the Add New hyperlink.
7. Repeat this process for the A, B, C, D, & F letter grades.

Note: It is not necessary to fill in a percentage for letter grades that you do not want to use, however a value of 0 should be assigned to the lowest letter grade. The grading scale also supports the optional use of non-numeric characters, such as "+", "-", S (satisfactory), U (unsatisfactory), I (incomplete), etc., to represent alternate performance scales.