SLATE2 Quickstart Guide: Grades Setup

A grade book is a list of items on which you evaluate users’ performance. Grade items can include assignments, tests, discussion

posts, participation, and so on. Together, the items in a grade book represent all the work that you evaluate users on in a course.

Before you can use the Grades tool, you must set up a grade book.

Before you set up a grade book in Learning Environment, you should know:

What grade items you plan to evaluate users on.

How much each grade item should be worth (points and weight of final grade).

How you want grade items to be evaluated.

How you want to calculate final grades.

Although you can adjust your grade book later, making changes to how the grade book is structured or calculated after users’

grades have been entered can significantly change your data.

To access the grades setup wizard click and select the Setup Wizard tool.

To get started, scroll to the bottom and click

Grades Setup Wizard

1. Choose a Grade System

POINTS

WEIGHTED

Points System: Choose the points grade system if you want to calculate the final grade by totaling the

points users receive on a grade item. Example: Assignment One: __/20 Assignment Two: __/100 Exam: __/200 Final Grade: __/240

Weighted System: Choose the weighted system if you want grade items to be calculated as a

percentage of the final grade. Weighted is the most common. Example: Assignment One is assessed out of __/50 points and is worth 25% of the final grade.

Select your preferred grade system and select

2. Final Grade Released

Calculated Final Grade: The system automatically calculates the final grade based on the formula set up in the grade book.

Adjusted Final Grade: Allows you to modify and adjust users’ grades prior to releasing them.

Select your preferred grade system and select

Drop ungraded items Treat ungraded items as 0 Items that do not have a grade inputted are

treated as 0 in the final grade.

Items that do not have a grade inputted

are not counted in the final grade.

What do students see? Dropping ungraded items allows students to

view an accurate calculation of their grades

throughout the course. Treating ungraded items as 0 will show a

0/F for all grade items not yet marked.

3. Grade Calculations

4. Choose a Default Grade Scheme

SLATE2 Quickstart Guide: Grades Setup

7. Managing View Display Options

A grade scheme is a way of organizing users’ performances on grade items into levels of achievement. The Sheridan

Grading System is built into SLATE2

and will display the letter grade that

corresponds with the percentage

achieved on a grade item.

Select a Grade Scheme and click

Select the number of decimals that will be displayed in the Instructor view of

the Gradebook. Click

6. Student View Display Options Points Grade: Displays the points grade to students (39/50)

Weighted Grade: Displays the weighed grade to students (78%)

Grade Scheme Symbol: Displays the scheme symbol to students (B+)

Grade Scheme Colour: Determines whether or not the grade scheme colour

associated with a grade item is displayed.

Decimals Displayed: Determines how many decimals are displayed to students.

Characters Displayed: Determines how many characters of a text grade item

display on the user list.

Final Grade Calculation: This setting determines whether users can see how

their final grade was calculated in the student view.

Click

5. Grades Setup Summary

Review the Grade Book Settings you have selected and click

The Grades Setup Wizard will create setup your grades area based on your selections.

If at any time you want to make changes to your grade settings click visible in the top-right

corner of the grades tool

Adding a Grade Scheme 1. Outside of the Grades Setup Wizard click on and click

2. Click

3. Enter a name for the Grade Scheme

4. Define your ranges:

a. Enter the symbol you want to display for the grade

Range in the Symbol column.

b. Enter the lowest grade in the Start column.

c. Enter the numeric grade you want users to achieve in the Assigned Value column.

*Click to add additional grade scheme levels. *Click the icon beside a level to delete it. *Click when finished.

SLATE2 Quickstart Guide: Creating Grade Items and Categories

Grade Items Grade items represent the individual assignments, quizzes, performance

measurements, etc., that you want to grade users on. Each grade item has its

own entry in the grade book, which you assign a grade to for each user.

Grade items can be tied to other course objects, such as quizzes, dropboxes

or discussion forums, SCORM content or, they can exist independently.

The Grades Tool To access the Grades tool click on the course navbar.

There are four areas in the Grades tool;

Enter Grades: Use this page to view, enter, import and export grades.

Manage Grades: Use this page to create, edit, delete, reorder and set display options and release conditions for grade items and

categories.

Schemes: Use this page to create new grade schemes or view organization grade schemes

Setup Wizard: Use this page to setup the grades tool. This should be done before creating grade items or categories.

1. Navigate to the area of the Grades tool.

2. Click and select from the dropdown list.

3. Choose the type of grade item you want to create from the list. This example uses Numeric grade items as they are the most common.

4. Enter the name for the grade item.

5. Enter a short name to display in the grade book.

6. If you want the grade item to be associated with a category select

the category from the dropdown list. (see next page for info on categories)

7. Enter a description for the grade item.

8. If you want students to see the description select the box beside

9. Enter the value you want the item to be graded out of

in the Max. Points field. (Assign. 1 is out of 50 points)

10. If you are using the weighted grade system, enter the

weight you want it to contribute to the final grade.

11. If you want users grades to be able to exceed the total value of the

item, select can exceed.

12. If you are using the points system, you may also choose the

Exclude from Final Grade Calculation option, if applicable. If you

are using the weighted system you can accomplish the same

results by setting the weight to 0%

13. Select a grade scheme to associate with the item if different than

the one you selected during grades setup.

14. Click to add a rubric

15. Click

Example: Assignment One: Business Analysis /50 worth 20% of the final grade

About Grades Creating Grade Items

Types of Grade Items:

Numeric

Selectbox

Pass / Fail

Formula

Calculated

Text

SLATE2 Quickstart Guide: Creating Grade Items and Categories

Creating Grade Categories

Scenario:

There are 4 Quizzes in a course that make up 30% of a student’s final grade. Each quiz is marked out of 25 points. I want students

to take all 4 quizzes however; I want to drop the two lowest quizzes from the students mark. The two quizzes with the highest

mark will count towards 30% of the student’s grade.

Step One: Create a Category

1. Click on the course navbar and enter

2. Click and select from the dropdown list.

3. Type a name for the category.

4. Enter a short name if the name exceeds 15 characters.

5. To add a description, click show description and enter the

description in the field.

7. If you are using the weighted system, enter the total Weight or

percentage that you want the category to contribute towards the final

grade. (In my example, Quizzes will contribute 30% to the final grade)

8. Under the Distribution heading select how you would like to distribute

the weight and points for grade items in this category:

For the weighted system select one of:

a. Manually assign weight to items in the category: Calculating and

setting item weights enables you to control the weighting of

individual items that belong to a weighted category.

b. Distribute weights by points across all items in the

category: Uses the points of individual, non-bonus grade items to

determine the relative weighting of each item out of 100%.

c. Distribute weight evenly across all items: Gives all grade items

equal weighting in the weighted category regardless of the

number of points the individual item is out of.

For the points or formula system:

d. Distribute points across all items then enter the Points per item.

9. If you choose to distribute weight evenly across all items, select the number of highest or lowest non-bonus items to drop for

each user. (In my example, I want to drop the two lowest quizzes from the students mark so I enter 2 in the Number of lowest non-bonus items).

10. Select additional display options for this category and click

Step Two: Create Grade Items for the Category

In my example, I would create four grade items; Quiz One, Quiz Two, Quiz Three and Quiz Four.

Note: if you are manually assigning a weight, make sure you are assigning a weight out of the category as opposed to a weight of the final grade.

All items in a category must weigh 100% of the category. Each of my four items would need to weigh 25% of the Quiz category.

1. Follow the instructions on the previous page about creating grade items.

2. At step 6, select the category you want to associate the grade item with. (In my example, Quizzes)

3. I have chosen to distribute the weight evenly across all items when

setting up the category. As a result the Weight field will automatically

assign a weight and I only enter points. The weight will change as you

add additional Grade Items.

SLATE2 Quickstart Guide: Entering Grades

To access the Enter Grades page access the Grades tool by clicking on the course navbar and click

Entering Grades

By default you will see a spreadsheet that contains student’s names and grade items. There are two view options on this

page; Standard View and Spreadsheet View.

Standard View: shows a list of students and a

column for each grade item. What is displayed

on this page depends the Grade Details chosen

in the Personal Display Options. You cannot

enter grades in this view.

Spreadsheet View: shows a list of students and

a column for each grade item. This view allows

you to enter grades directly into the user list for

all items.

To switch between views click these buttons:

Entering Grades in Spreadsheet View: Entering Grades by User:

1. Click on

2. Click

3. Enter grades in the input fields.

4. Click

1. On the ppage, click on the users name

2. On the user’s page, enter grades for the appropriate grade items.

4. Click

3. Click the link to

add Comments for User (Students)

or User Leading a Course Only

Comments (Instructors) for your

records.

Entering Grades by Category: Entering Grades by Grade Item:

1. Click on

2. Select the dropdown arrow

next to the category you want to add

grades for and select

3. Enter the grades in the field.

1. Click on

2. Select the dropdown arrow next to the grade item you

want to add grades for and select

3. Enter the grade in the field:

Four ways to Enter Grades:

Additional Task Icons:

Flag users for future reference

Preview the user’s grades

View the event log for a user’s grades

Email the user Enter comments

Clear grades for selected or all users.

SLATE2 Quickstart Guide: Final Grades

Final Grades:

Calculated Final Grade: A user’s calculated final grade is calculated based on the grading formula set up in the grade book. You cannot

adjust it to accommodate special circumstances without editing individual grade items or categories and

recalculating the total.

Adjusted Final Grade:

The adjusted final grade enables you to modify or adjust a users’ grade before releasing it.

Recalculate a Final Grade: Enter an Adjusted Final Grade:

You only need to recalculate the final grade is “Automatically keep

final grades updated” was not selected in the Grades setup.

For a single user:

1. Click the user’s name.

2. Under the Final Calculated Grade heading click the icon

to recalculate the final grade.

The system will tell you if the calculation is

out of date by displaying a warning message:

To access the Final Grades page click on the course navbar. Click

For all users:

1. Click on the dropdown arrow beside

2. Select from the dropdown list.

3. On the Final Grades page click the dropdown arrow next to

4. Select

1. On the page make sure you are in

Spreadsheet view.

2. Enter the grade in the Final Adjusted Grade column:

Release the Final Calculated Grade as the Adjusted Grade:

1. On the page click the dropdown arrow

next to

2. Select

3. On the Final Grades page click the dropdown arrow

next to

4. Select from the dropdown list.

5. In the popup window click

Releasing Final Grades:

1. On the page click the dropdown arrow next to

or,

2. Select from the dropdown list.

3. Select the users you want to release the final grades for by

checking the box beside their names

4. Select

Once Final Grades have been released the icon will appear

beside the users Final Grade on the Enter Grades page.

If the Final Grade is out of date, the icon will appear beside the

users Final Grade on the Enter Grades page.