---
title: "Gradebook"
canonical: "https://helpcentre.macewan.ca/space/ETS/1876426800/Gradebook"
format: markdown
---
**AUDIENCE: ****FACULTY**** | ****STAFF**
# Introduction
All the grades for each student in a course can be found in the course gradebook, or *Grader report*, accessed from the course navigation by clicking **Grades**.
The gradebook helps you to manage and arrange a set of grades effectively. When an activity is created in a course, an entry into the grade book is created automatically (for example, when you create an assignment or forum activity). You can manually input grades for offline activities such as written exams, oral presentations, or class participation. You can specify the method for calculating and assigning different weights to your assessment items and can customize how these grades are presented to your students.
It is good practice to have the course outline and weighting criteria for the grades ready before setting up the gradebook.
This sample course outline weighting will be used as a model for the examples on this page:
It is also necessary to have your department’s grades conversion scale. This sample grade conversion will be used as a model in this guide.
# Hide the gradebook from view during setup
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If you are working on a course that already has the students enrolled, you should hide the grade book from the student view while you adjust the settings.
To hide the gradebook from students:
Click **Settings*** *at the top of the course page,
On the next page, find the **Appearance** section, and choose **No** in the **Show gradebook to students** selection menu.
** Remember to change this setting back to *Yes* when the gradebook setup is finished.
# Finding the Gradebook Setup
To open the gradebook Setup, click **Grades*** *in the navigation bar.
From the drop-down menu on the left, select **Gradebook setup.**
# Setting Letter Grades
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If the letter grade default setting doesn’t include A+, refer to your department conversion letter chart to set up the correct letter conversion.
**Gradebook setup** > **Grade letters**.
Click the **EDIT** button to modify the letter conversion information.
Select the **Override site defaults** check box. The grey background in the cells will change to white, indicating that you can edit the cells. You can now edit the letter grade scale to match your course outline.
You can **round up** grades to the nearest whole number or a specified number of decimal places. It's worth noting that rounding grades up can have an impact on the overall grade for students. For example, if a student's average grade is 79.5 and you choose to round up to the nearest whole number, their final grade will be 80. It's important to consider whether rounding up is appropriate for your grading system and how it may affect your students' performance. Here is an example of the **grade letters** with rounding up.
**Note**: Contact your department Chair for more information if your department has a standard to apply round-up to gradebook grade letters.
Click **SAVE CHANGES** when you are finished.
# Gradebook Setup
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Based on the sample course outline evaluation breakdown that was provided at the beginning of this page, all activities have been created automatically in the gradebook except the **Class Participation**.
Select **Grades** from the top navigation menu, and from the drop-down menu, choose **Gradebook setup**.
Any items that have been created using the activity tools will automatically be included in the Gradebook (for example, an assignment or forum activity)
1. Referring to the sample course outline used at the beginning of this guide, all the items (for example: **forum discussions**, **assignments**, and **exams)** created using activity tools will be automatically included in the Gradebook *except* the **Course participation** mark that must be added manually.
2. The **Max Grade** column is the highest possible points (raw number) that can be achieved for a particular activity. It represents the total points a student can earn for that item.
**Note:** the max grade total can be more than 100 points and will not represent the course total.
3. The **Weights** column allows you to assign a weight (percentage) to each grade item or category to determine its importance in calculating the final grade. The weight column is typically used when multiple grade items (in groups or categories) contribute to the final grade. Assigning weights ensures that each grade item is appropriately considered in the overall grade calculation based on the evaluation in the course outline.
## Adding Manual Grade Items (Grade Column) to the Gradebook
A **manual grade item** allows faculty to manually enter grades for an activity or assessment that is** not automatically graded **within Moodle, such as a paper-based exam, assignment, oral presentation, or class participation grade.
In the **Gradebook setup** area, click the **Add grade item** button.
Enter the new item's name and maximum point value in the next window.
Click the **SAVE CHANGES** button when finished.
## Adding a grade category to the gradebook
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A **Grade category** is a way to group related Grade Items (activities) in the Gradebook and apply common weighting. Grade Categories allow you to organize the Gradebook based on your course outline.
***Note:**** there is no need to create a category for ****single items**** on your course outline.*
In the **Gradebook setup** area, click the **Add category **button.
1) Add a **Category name** (e.g., Discussion)
2) keep the aggregation method as **Natural**; by clicking on *Show more*, you will see steps 3 and 4
3) keep the **Exclude empty grades** checked (if you uncheck this setting, the gradebook will apply a 0 mark as default for all students).
4) if you plan to give options to students to complete only mandatory activities by choice, you may add a number to “Drop the Lowest” box. Otherwise, keep 0 as the default.
**Example:** students can choose to complete 2 out of 3 discussions in the course. To achieve this, enter the number ‘1’ in the “Drop the lowest” box. It means the discussion category will keep the 2 highest marks and drop the lowest mark.
## Combining related grade items into a category
In the **Select** column, choose related items by clicking on boxes.
In the drop-down menu at the bottom of the page choose the category you want to move the selected items into.
Click **SAVE CHANGES**.
The selected items will be moved to the chosen category.
Some grade items are learning activities and may include formative tasks that are not part of the course grade evaluation. This can lead to confusion if some grades count towards a student’s overall average and others do not.
The solution is to add a gradebook category called **Excluded from Grading**. All items you do not want to be counted toward the final grade should be sent to this category, and students can access their formative task grades.
## Move Grade Items and Categories in the Gradebook
The same arrangement of grade items and categories is recommended in the course outline and the gradebook to avoid confusing the students. To do this, click the vertical double arrow icon beside the grade item or category and select the empty dotted box on the next page.
After moving items and categories, it should have the same order as the course outline evaluation.
## Assign Weighting in the Gradebook
The **Weights** column allows you to assign a weight to each grade item or category to determine its importance in calculating the final grade. The weight column is typically used when multiple grade items or categories contribute to the final grade. Assigning weights ensures that each grade item is appropriately considered in the overall grade calculation based on the course outline evolution chart.
To assign the weighting, refer to your **course outline** and select the appropriate grade items and categories under the **Weight** column, and then add the weighting.
The **Excluded from Grading** category should be set to “0”.
Click **SAVE CHANGES** to save your work.
You will see the same weighting as your course outline under the **Weights** column.
## Gradebook User Report (Student View) Setup
Students see a slightly different page in their gradebook. To access the **User report**, click **Grades** from the dropdown menu, choose **User Report,** and then **Select a user** from the dropdown menu.
The user report includes some columns that may confuse students accessing their grades. Remove unnecessary columns to show a simplified view to students.
To adjust the **User report** (student view), click **Grades** at the top of your course page, and choose **Course grade settings** from the drop-down menu.
Scroll down the page to find the **User report** section and customize the columns and information you want the students to see.
Click **SAVE CHANGES** to save your selections.
## Change the Course Total to a Percentage or a Letter Grade
Faculty can change the course total shown to students from **Real** (raw number) to **Percentage** or **Percentage (Letter). **
Click the **Grades** from the middle course menu.
From the drop-down menu on the left, choose **Gradebook setup**.
In the **Name** column, locate the top-level folder (this will likely be titled with the course name) and click** Edit > Edit settings.**
In the **Category total** section, click the *Show more* link to expand the category options.
Locate the **Grade display type** and change the option from **Default (Real)** to **Percentage** or **Percentage (letter)**.
Students can now see their course total in **Percentage** or **Percentage (Letter)**.
# Enter the Grades Manually
You can access the grading in activities such as **Forum**, **Assignment**, and **Quiz** through each activity separately on your course main page. Additional in-class activities such as **Class Participation** that have been added to the gradebook as items can be manually graded by following these steps.
Click **Grades** at the top of your course page and find **Grader Report** from the drop-down menu.
Make sure the **Edit Mode** is toggled to **Off**. When **Edit Mode On** in the Gradebook you may easily make mistakes since all grade items are available for manual grading.
Find the specific grade column and click on the **pencil** icon at the top of the column.
Click on **Edit Mode** at the top right of your page.
(1) Start adding a **Grade** for each student.
(2) You may add **Feedback** for each student.
3) After adding grades for all students, click **Save**.
# Override, Exclude, and Bulk Insert Grades
## Override Grades
In your course, activities include quizzes, assignments, forums, and others. that are set up to be graded will automatically send the grade to the Gradebook. If you need to override those grades, follow these steps.
Make sure the **Edit Mode** is **Off**. Note that with Edit mode on in the Gradebook level, you may easily make mistakes as all grade items will be available for manual grading.
Find the specific grade column and click the **Pencil** icon at the top of the column.
Toggle the **Edit mode** to the on position.
Click (1) the **Override** box for a specific student, (2) Override the **Grade** box, (3) Click **Save**.
Turn the **Edit mode** off after the changes.
Note that the cell surrounding the text box is highlighted when grades are overridden. This is to call attention to the fact that the grade has been changed manually.
**Note:** **Do not override **a category total or the course total. Those will be calculated based on the weighting setup. Also, you must add zero manually for students who missed the activity submission. The grade calculation will be incorrect if a zero is not assigned for those individuals. Refer to the **Assign Bulk Grades** section for more information on how to add zero for multiple students.
## Exclude Grades
The **Exclude** feature in mêskanâs Gradebook allows faculty to exclude a specific grade item for a student from their final grade calculation. When a grade item is excluded for a student, the item's weight is redistributed to the remaining grade items for that student. This means that the excluded item will not be included in the student's final grade calculation, but the weight of the excluded item will be distributed proportionally among the remaining grade items to compensate for the exclusion.
*For example: *
*Suppose a student has four grade items worth 20%, 30%, 25%, and 25%, respectively, and the faculty decides to exclude the grade item worth 20% for this particular student. The excluded grade item will be removed from the student's final grade calculation, and the remaining grade items will be re-weighted to compensate for the exclusion. In this case, the weight of the excluded item (20%) will be redistributed among the remaining grade items in the following way: the first graded item will increase to 38.46%, and the other two grade items will increase to 30.77% each.*
**To exclude a grade item for a specific student, follow these steps:**
Make sure the **Edit mode** is **Off **by toggling the button.
Find the specific grade column and click on the **Pencil** icon at the top of the column.
Click on **Edit Mode** at the top right of your page.
Click (1) **Exclude** box for a specific student, (2) Click **Save**
Note that when grades are *excluded*, the **Excluded** text is highlighted in a **red color**. This is to call attention to the fact that the grade has been excluded manually.
Turn the **Edit Mode** off after the changes.
It's worth noting that when excluding a grade item in mêskanâs Gradebook, there is no way to redistribute the weight of the excluded item to a specific remaining grade item. The redistribution is done automatically by mêskanâs, and the weight of the excluded item is distributed proportionally among the remaining grade items.
## Assign Bulk Grades
Bulk insert grades is a feature in the gradebook that allows you to enter grades for multiple students simultaneously. This is particularly useful when you want to add the same grade for a group of students or when you want to insert grades for several activities at once.
For example, if you have an Assignment activity with a maximum grade of 10, and some students did not submit their assignments, you must give them a zero for the missing work. To do this, you can use the Bulk Insert Grades feature to add a zero for all the students who did not submit their assignments.
To perform **Bulk Insert Grades,** follow these steps:
Make sure the **Edit Mode** is **Off**.
Find the specific grade column and click on the **Pencil** icon at the top of the column.
Click on **Edit Mode** at the top right of your page.
Click **Actions** drop-down menu, Click **Bulk Insert Grades**.
In the pop-up window, (1) **Check** the statement, (2) select **Empty Grades**, (3) check the new grade value, (4) click **Save**.
Using **All Grades** is not recommended as some students may have already obtained a grade for the activity, and using this option will change their original grades.
Turn the **Edit Mode** off after the changes.
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