SMG Tools
Gradebook
Instructors may use the Gradebook tool to assign points to individual assignments and to calculate/distribute overall course
grades to students online. Using the tool, instructors add assignments and assign points to the assignments according to their
relative weights in determining the overall course grade. The total of the assignment points may equal 100 points (but does
not need to).
Managing Gradebook Assignments (instructors)
Adding Assignments
To add an assignment, select the Gradebook tool from the site menu and perform the following steps:
- From the Overview screen, select the Add Assignment button. The Add Assignment screen opens.
- Specify the Title for the Assignment (required).
- Specify the Point Value for the Assignment (required). The Point Value is a number that will be used by the Gradebook tool
to determine an Assignment's relative weight in calculating the overall course grade for each student.
Instructors may choose to configure Assignment Points in such a way that the total of all Assignment Points equals 100,
but this is not a requirement. Whatever the total is, each assignment's weight will be determined by the
proportion of the total points that its Assignment Point Value represents.
- Specify the Due Date in mm/dd/yy format (optional). (Not assigning a due date might be appropriate for non-specific
assignments such as "class participation").
- Indicate in the check box if the assignment counts towards the overall course grade. (Instructors might wish to assign
and grade assignments such as practice tests which will not count towards the overall course grade.)
- Indicate in the check box if the assignment is to be released and made visible to students in the course. (Instructors may
wish to set up their course sites, in advance, with all of the assignments for the course and only release them when they
are actually assigned.)
- Click the Submit button to add the assignment to the Gradebook
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Editing Assignments
To edit an assignment:
- Select the Gradebook tool from the site menu and choose the appropriate Assignment from the list of assignments in the
Title column. The Assignment Summary screen for the chosen screen will open.
- Select "Edit assignment settings" opposite the Options heading. The Edit Assignment screen will open.
- Make changes to the assignment's settings, as required.
- Select Submit to make the changes take effect. You will be returned to the Assignment Summary screen.
- Select the return arrow to return to the Gradebook Overview screen.
Deleting Assignments
To delete an assignment:
- Select the Gradebook tool from the site menu and choose the appropriate Assignment from the list of assignments in the
Title column. The Assignment Summary screen for the chosen screen will open.
- Select "Remove assignment from gradebook " opposite the Options heading. The Remove Assignment screen will
open.
- Check the box labeled "Remove this assignment and all associated scores from the gradebook."
- Select Remove. You will return to the Gradebook Overview screen and will see a confirmation message indicating that the
assignment has been removed.
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Grading Assignments
To grade an assignment:
- Select the Gradebook tool from the site menu and choose the appropriate Assignment from the list of assignments in the
Title column. The Assignment Summary screen for the chosen screen will open.
- In the View drop-down box, select All Sections or a particular section. (If you only wish to grade a particular student,
you can enter a student's name and use the Find button.) The list of students you have selected to grade will be
displayed.
- Assign points for each student relative to the maximum number of points available for the assignment. (This is the number
which was specified when the assignment was added to the gradebook and is shown opposite the Points heading in the
Assignment Summary screen.)
For example: If an assignment counted for 25 possible course points and a student got an 80% grade on the assignment, then
they should be assigned 25 x 80% = 20 points for the assignment.
- When all points for the assignment have been entered, select Save. The updated scores will be saved and the class average
expressed as a percentage of possible points for the assignment will be displayed. You will see a message indicating,
"New scores saved."
Note: If scores are not entered for some students (perhaps because they have not yet turned in their
assignment), then their score(s) will not be considered in the calculation of the class average.
Score Log: Opposite each student's name and ID is a Log icon. By selecting this icon, you can view a log of what scores
were assigned by date and by person.
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Grade Options (Releasing Grades to students)
The Gradebook tool provides options for when and how to release grades to students and for how to define the correspondence
between numeric grades and letter grades. These options are described below:
- Select the Gradebook tool from the site menu. The Overview screen will be displayed.
- Select the Grade Options button at the top of the screen. The Grade Options screen will open.
- There are two check boxes under the Grade Display heading (either or both of which may be checked):
- Choose (check) the first box if you wish grades to be made available to students as soon as the scores have been
entered for any or all of them. This check box only applies to assignments that have been released (or assigned)
to students.
- Choose (check) the second box if you wish to display to students how many cumulative points they have earned so
far out of all of the possible points for the entire course and the course letter grade that represents.
Note: If you choose to utilize the second check box, be sure to explain to students that assignments not yet
completed or graded are counted as zero points in calculating the cumulative course letter grade to date. (This
behavior can be overridden by utilizing the Gradebook Grade Override feature. See separate heading "Course
Grade Calculation " below.)
- Grade Type - Select one of three Grade Types from the drop-down box:
- Letter Grades
- Letter Grades with +/-
- Pass/Not Pass
Select the Change grade type button to finalize the selection and open the appropriate grade conversion table.
Modify the grade conversion table (or reset to default values) to reflect the proper minimum % to qualify for each
letter grade.
- Select Save to finalize your grade options for the course Gradebook.
Relationship of the Gradebook tool to the Assignments and Tests & Quizzes tools
Assignments may be added directly to the Gradebook using the editing features of the Gradebook tool itself (as described
above). In addition, assignments created independently, using the features of either the Assignments tool or the Tests &
Quizzes tool, may be added to the Gradebook. Please refer to the on-line documentation for those tools for details.
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Course Grade Calculation
The Grade book tool will compute an overall course grade based on assignments that have been released to students and have been
graded. To utilize this feature, open the Gradebook tool and click on Course Grade at the bottom of the Assignments screen.
Individual course grades (based on assignment submissions/grading to date) will be shown for each student as well as an overall
score for the class as a whole.
However, the calculated grade for any student may be overridden by entering a valid grade opposite the student's name in the Grade
Override column. If you enter a Grade Override you must select Save in order to make it apply. (Clear the Grade Override box and
click Save to eliminate a Grade Override for a student.)
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Uploading and Importing Assignments
As an alternative to adding assignments to the Gradebook manually, instructors may wish to import assignments from an
Excel .csv file.
Downloading and Exporting Course Scores
The Gradebook tool provides the ability to download course scores to either a standard Excel or a CSV file.
To do this, open the Gradebook and select Course Grade from the Overview screen. At the bottom of the Course Grade screen select
either Export for Excel or Export CSV. You may then choose to either open the chosen file type in an Excel spreadsheet or save it
without opening it.
It is highly recommended that you elect to first open it as a spreadsheet and then save it with a
user-friendly name (instead of the long complicated name that SMGtools assigns to it) and that you save it to a permanent location
on your hard drive.
Viewing Scores (students)
Students may view their scores on assignments that have been released and graded by opening the Gradebook tool for
their course site. Their scores may be sorted in either ascending or descending order by clicking on the column headings for
Title, Due Date, Score, or Points.
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