Releasing final grades to students
This is an important step that must be done in order for students to see their Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade. By default, unless a grade item is hidden, students are able to see individual grade items when accessing their Grades area, but do not see a final grade related to either “Final Calculated Grade” or “Adjusted Final Grade” items (calculated in the Brightspace grades area) unless the chosen final grade item has been released. Release of the calculated grade item can be done for the whole class (release all) or for individual learners
- What is required: A D2L Brightspace course with student scores entered in the grade book
Using Final Calculated Grade vs. Final Adjusted Grade
You can only use and release one final grade to your students: final calculated grade or final adjusted grade. If you want students to be able to see their current final grade, I’d recommend you use Final Calculated Grade first so that the grades will be automatically calculated by the system, then at the end of the term, you can change it to Final Adjusted Grade.
Important Notes:
- Make sure that your grades are set up correctly. If you have any grade item or grade category that you are not using, they will affect the final grade calculation, even if you already hide them from the students’ view. If you hide unused grade item or category, you will also need to exclude them from the final grade so they won’t affect the final grade. It’s best to delete unused grade item or category to keep your grades clean.
- Once you set up your grades properly, enter grade for yourself and give yourself full points for all the grade items to make sure that the grades are calculated correctly
- Even though you already release the final grade, if you change the setting between using Final Calculated Grade or Final Adjusted Grade, or adjust students’ grades after being released, you will need to release the final grade again.
Steps
- Step 1: Checking Grade settings are correct to display
- Step 2: Releasing final calculated grade to students
- Step 3: Switching to final adjusted grade (Optional-end of the term)
- Step 4: Viewing grades as students
Step 1: Checking Grade settings are correct to display
Check the grade settings to make sure the final grades shows up properly before releasing them to the students
- In the Grades area, click on Settings
- In the Personal Display Options, make sure you have all checked under Grade Details. This will allow you to see the final grades
Note: You will see different options under Grade Details depending on which grading system you use: weighted, points, or formula
- Click on the Save button and click on the Org Unit Display Options tab at the top
- In the Org Unit Display Options tab, make sure you have all checked under Grade Details. This will allow students to see the final grades, but you will still need to release it later
Note: You will see different options under Grade Details depending on which grading system you use: weighted, points, or formula
- Click on the Save button and click on the Calculation Options tab at the top
- In the Calculation Options tab:
- Select Final Calculated Grade under Final Grade Released
- You can choose to check the box for Automatically release final grade
NOTE: In order for the automatic release of final grades in a course to function properly, the “Automatically release final grade” check box selection and save procedure MUST take place PRIOR to any grades being entered into the grades area. Selection of this variable usually occurs at the beginning of the term or prior to course start date, typically before grading has taken place.
- You can choose to check the box for Automatic Zero for Missing Submissionsﾠif you want to automatically apply a grade of 0 to any missing and overdue submissions.
Video: How to Enable Automatic Zero for Missing Submissions in D2L
- Make sure to check the box for Automatically keep final grades updated under Auto Update
- Click on the Save button, click on the Yes button to confirm, and click on the Close button
Step 2: Releasing final calculated grade to students
Step 3: Switching to final adjusted grade (Optional-end of the term)
Note: Recommended to start using this towards the end of the term because Final Adjusted Grade is not automatically populated by the system. So if you use this without doing anything, your students won’t be able to see anything in their Final Adjusted Grade.
Step 4: Viewing grades as students
Tips: to make sure that the grades are calculated correctly, enter grade for yourself and give yourself full points for all the grade items.
Video Tutorials:
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