Weigh Grades

Overview

Instructors can set a weight for each Grade Center 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 Grade Center weights according to category or item.

Find this page

Follow the steps below to open the Weight Grades page.

1. Select Grade Center on the Control Panel.
2. Select Weight Grades.

Fields

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

Important Information about Weighted Grades

The following information is important when weighting Grades:

• Grade Center items that have not been completed by Students are still calculated in the weight. Instructors may exclude items from calculations on the Add/Modify Grade Center 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 Grade Center 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 Grade Center 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 Grade Center Items, always include items in the Grade Center 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 Grade Center 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 Grade Center 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 Grade Center is weighted by category, such changes will be taken into account and applied automatically.