Grade Schemas
Grade schemas control how an assignment, category, or overall grade is displayed to students in the gradebook. This page shows how to create and edit schemas in the gradebook settings.
Accessing Grade Schema Settings
In your Blackboard course, open the Gradebook tab in the course navigation menu.
Find and click the gear icon below "Student Preview" to access the Gradebook settings.
The first section of the Gradebook Settings is "Grade Schemas." In this section, find the link that reads "Manage Grade Schemas" and click to open the Grade Schema settings.
Managing Grade Schemas
Adding New Grade Schemas
By default, Blackboard will have the SU Letter grading schema already created and ready for use within your course. If you wish to use a difference grade schema, follow the instructions below.
Steps:
- Click the "
Add" button located underneath the "Grade Schemas" title menu of the page. - When the pop up menu appears, type your preferred title.
- Click the black "Add" button on the pop up menu to save and create a table for the new grade schema.
Editing a Grade Schema
Once you have created a new grade schema template, you can now edit the table to fit your needs.
Let's create an example schema to adhere to the following grading scale:
A = 90%-100%
B = 80%-90%
C = 70%-80%
D = 60%-70%
F = 0%-60%
When you create a new Grade Schema, the table that is created will only have two rows and the rows are defaulted with the Grade name "A" and "F" and the grade Range % as "50%-100%" and "0%-50%" respectively.
The grading scale example above shows that you need five different rows in the table so you will need to add three rows, hovering the mouse between the two existing rows until the plus sign appears and clicking the plus sign three times.
Once the rows are added, type the needed "Grade Name" for each respective row.
In our current example, we will name these rows "B," "C," and "D" (as rows "A" and "F" already exist within the table).
To edit the Grade Range %, either click the three dots to the right of the row to open the "Edit" option, or simply click on the percentage that you want to edit and an editable text box will appear.
Please note that only the lower bound percent of the grade range can be edited.
You will notice in the screen grab below that the upper bound percentages automatically change based on changes that were made in the previous row.
When all edits are made, be sure to click the black "Save" button in the lower right hand corner.
Applying Grade Schema to Gradable Items
Once grade schemas are created in the system, they are available to be used and applied to any gradable items that you add to, or that already exist in, the Blackboard course.
Applying schema to new Content items
- Select the type of gradable content item you would like to create. (More information on Creating Content and explanations of each Item type can be found here.)
- Click the gear icon on the right side of the screen across from "Assignment Settings."
- When the panel menu appears on the right side of your screen, scroll down to the "Grading and Submissions" section.
- Under the "Grade using" option, click the drop down menu (defaulted to say "Points").
- Choose the grade schema that you would like to apply to the assignment.
- Click the black "Save" button in the right hand corner.
Applying schema to existing items
- Navigate to the Gradebook tab of your Blackboard course.
- Hover over the item that you would like to edit and click.
- Select the "Edit" option in the dropdown menu that appears.
- Follow the same steps as listed in "Applying schema to new Content items," unless you are editing the Overall Grade. If so, follow the next steps listed below
- In the right hand column titled "Overall Grade Settings," locate the dropdown menu under "Select how the overall grade is displayed."
- Choose the appropriate grade schema from the dropdown menu.
- Click the large blue "X" located in the top left corner of the course to exit and save.
Here is a video walk through of how to apply grade schema to gradable items in your Blackboard course: