Weight Grades

Overview

Instructors can set a weight for each Gradebook item to determine a final grade. For example, a final exam may be worth 25 percent of a Student's grade while a reading quiz may be worth only 10 percent. Instructors can adjust Gradebook weights according to category or item.

Find this page

Follow the steps below to open the Weight Grades page.

Select Gradebook on the Control Panel.
Select Weight Grades.

Fields

The table below details the fields on the Weight Grades page.

Field	Description
Weighting
Weight by Category	Click Weight by Category to weight grades by the category. For example, all Assignments will have the same weight and all Quizzes will have the same weight. Enter the percentage to weight each category in the boxes to the left.
Weight by Item	Click Weight by Item to weight grades by name as they are defined in the Gradebook. For example, the mid-term exam can be weighted differently then the final exam. Enter the percentage to weight each item in the boxes to the left.

Important Information about Weighted Grades

The following information is important when weighting grades:

Gradebook items that have not been completed by Students are still calculated in the weight. Instructors may exclude items from calculations on the Add/Modify Gradebook Item page, however, this is not optimal if the grade will be considered as part of the final grade at a later point. If the instructor is unsure, include the Gradebook Item in the calculations and give it a weight of zero. It is then quite easy to change the weight of grades throughout the term.
The percentages for Weight by Category must add up to 100 percent. An error message will appear if the percentages do not add up to 100 percent.
The percentages for Weight by Item need not equal 100 percent. This allows the Instructor the freedom to adjust weighting throughout the term. Please note that a total of more than 100 percent is not allowed, and a total of less than 100 percent, while allowed, will slightly inflate the weighted total of individual items.
If an item has a weight of 0 percent, the item will not be calculated in the grade weight. This will occur if a new Gradebook item is added and a percentage for the item is not added to the Weight by Item column.

When Weight by Category is selected, the following information will apply:

Each item in a category is worth the same weight, regardless of total points. For example, if quizzes are worth 25% as a category, a quiz worth 50 points will not be weighted more then a quiz worth 15 points.
The weight for each item is calculated by taking the weight for the category and dividing that by the number of items in the category.
The number of items in the category is counted as the number of items the Instructor has created in that category. Therefore, if Quizzes have a 100% weight and a Student takes an exam and gets a perfect score, his or her weighted total will be 100%. If the Instructor adds a second quiz, the Students weighted total will drop to 50%, since the weight for each item is divided by two. Since, the Student has not taken the second exam yet, their score for it is zero.

Tips for Weighting Grades

When creating Gradebook Items, always include items in the Gradebook calculations unless there is no possibility that the item will be used to form students’ final grades. Instead, give items a weight of zero until it is decided what the weight of the grade should be.
Use a running total to give students a more accurate view of their progress to date. The Total and Weighted Total columns in the gradebook can be modified to exempt items that have not yet been graded. This will create a running total and a running weighted total.
Often, the weights of gradebook items will change throughout the term. In some cases, this may be handled by weighting grades by category. For example, a final exam may be worth 40 percent, essays may be worth 30 percent, and quizzes may be worth 30 percent. In this manner, the instructor may add or remove quizzes and essays throughout the term to coincide with student progress in key areas. If the gradebook is weighted by category, such changes will be taken into account and applied automatically.