The Grade Center is a central repository for assessment data, student information, and instructor notes. It is also an interactive communications and reporting tool that can assist students, instructors, administrators, and other stakeholders to understand student progress and make informed decisions on how to improve educational performance.
The Grade Center interacts with many systems in the Blackboard Academic Suite. Understanding how and where these interactions happen provides a comprehensive view of the Grade Center and offers information to help users take full advantage of the functionality and features of this tool.
The following table explains Grade Center and its interaction with other Academic Suite systems and features:
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Area |
Interaction |
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Course Content |
Assignments, Assessments, and Discussion Board items that have been marked for a grade each generate Columns in the Grade Center automatically. Items that have a due date can be assigned a Grading Period automatically based on that date. For more information on adding graded items automatically to the Grade Center see Adding Columns to the Grade Center. For more information on Grading Periods see Creating Grading Periods. |
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Early Warning System |
The Early Warning System is a rule driven communication feature that can send email messages to students and their observers when criteria of the rule are met. For example, a rule can be set to send email to any student who scores below a 60 on an exam. The score entered into the Grade Center, whether automatically or manually, spawns the message. |
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Observers |
An Observer can log in and access their Observed Student’s grades as recorded and released in the Grade Center. This can be enabled through Course Settings. |
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View Grades Tool |
When Instructors release grades to students for viewing, students can access the Grade Center using the View Grades tool from the My Institution tab. A list of courses the students are enrolled in will appear. When students click the name of the course, they are taken to the course’s View Grades page of the Grade Center. |
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My Grades Course Tool |
When instructors release grades to students for viewing, students can click the My Grades tool within their course to access the View Grades page of the Grade Center. |
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Report Card Module |
If the System Administrator has made the Report Card Module available, students can add it to their My Institution tab. The module will display the instructor's choice of each course’s grade. This is known as the External Grade in the Grade Center. A link will take students to the View Grades page of the Grade Center. |
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Performance Dashboard |
Instructors and Teacher’s Assistants can access the Grade Center through the Performance Dashboard, where grades can be viewed and updated. |
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Email can be sent to selected students, all students, selected observers, or all observers directly from the Grade Center. The Email link goes to the Send Email page. For more information on sending email from the Grade Center. See Sending Email from the Grade Center. |
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External data from other grading systems |
Data can be imported and exported to the Grade Center by uploading and downloading delimited files. For more information on importing data to and exporting data from the Grade Center see Uploading External Grade Center Items. |
Instructors can take advantage of the many interactive features in the Grade Center to help them stay on track and keep students informed of their progress. Grade Center data can be used to identify students and direct them to appropriate instructional activity such as remediation or enrichment. The communication tools help students become more fully engaged in academic studies and get needed help by alerting them to areas of poor performance. The reporting features facilitate more comprehensive student and institutional assessment by displaying student data that is meaningful to evaluating outcomes.
The following example illustrates how the different features of the Grade Center come together:
An instructor has scheduled a unit test to be given to the class at a specific day and time. This test is part of a standard curriculum for the subject matter and has been used in past courses as a benchmark for evaluating student progress through required material. Students must receive a score of 70 or better to be successful in subsequent course material.
In this class (section), the instructor has created a group of students who are not native speakers of the language the class is taught in. The instructor has also created a group of students who have transferred to the institution and may not have mastered all the prerequisites for the material. These groups of students have been added to two Smart Views in the Grade Center so that their data can be viewed separately from the entire class.
The instructor has made the unit test, and decided not to immediately display the score to the students in the course to ensure that the release of scores for the class occurs at a set time. After the scheduled time for the test has past, the Grade Center signifies to the instructor that the unit test has been submitted by the students and needs to be graded (this is not a fully automatically scored online assessment). For each submission, the instructor is able to write comments. Some comments are released to the students with their grades and some comments remain in the Grade Center for the instructor’s use. This is a direct and personal form of feedback that the students can receive on a specific item.
As the instructor adds grades to the Grade Center for the unit test, students who scored below 70 and their Observers are sent a personalized email from within the Grade Center, indicating that they need to make an appointment to discuss the grade. One student who transferred to the course from another section had already taken the unit test and was marked Exempt. (Students who are exempted from a grade do not have that item grade figured into their final grade.)
After all grades have been recorded, the instructor opens the Smart Views containing grouped students in the Grade Center. The information the Smart Views provide is used to recommend targeted language remediation if necessary for non-native language speakers. It is also used to gauge the pre-requisite knowledge of transfer students and make recommendations for remediation or acceleration. This information is written in the comments section of the Grade Center for future reference and is eventually passed on to the department administration to be used for additional outcomes assessments.
A week after the unit tests are submitted and scored, the grades are released to students. A student who received a personally unsatisfactory grade communicated concern to the instructor. As a result of this conversation, the instructor changed the student’s grade and several other students’ grades as well. The Grade Center recorded the grade changes in the Grade History, leaving a record that details when and who changed a grade.
Students and Observers who received email notifications of low grades had follow up tasks to ensure material was mastered and future success in the course.