Grade Columns

Grade columns display grades for the different activities in your course. In Ultra course view, you can create columns for:

• Overall Grade — Displays the final course grade based on points, weighted items, or a custom formula. Gradable items — Columns are added automatically for grade items completed online, such as tests and assignments, or you can add columns manually for gradable items completed offline, such as activities that took place outside of class.
• Attendance grades — If you use attendance in your grade calculations, the Attendance column displays the student's current attendance grade. For more information, see Set up attendance for a course.
• Total Calculation column — Displays a calculated score based on points or weighted items. This is most often used for a Term calculation to provide students with another view of the Overall Grade, where one is in points and the other is percentages. For more information, see Total Calculation Columns. 
• Calculation column — Displays a calculated score based on a custom formula for a selection of coursework, such as only certain assessments or categories. For more information, see Calculation Columns. 

Overall Grade column

The Overall Grade column displays a calculated running tally of all the items you grade and post that count toward the overall course grade. It appears in the gradebook next to the students' names so you can quickly see how each student is performing.

Set up the overall grade

If you don't have the overall grade configured yet, you'll see a banner prompting you to set it up. 

Don't want to use the overall grade? Select Hide this message to remove this prompt from your screen. If you change your mind, you can always add the overall grade via the Gradebook Settings.

1. From the banner, select Set it up. The Overall Grade page appears.
2. Under Select a Calculation Type, select one of these options: 
   • Points. A points-based grade calculation may aid transparency as it makes clear to students what’s worth more in a course and what’s worth less. You can select which categories and items you want to include in the calculation. The max total points available in the course will be decided by the items and categories you include in the calculation.
   • Weighted. The weighted calculation calculates categories and grade items as a percentage of a final grade worth 100%. You can assign percentage values to any course item and category and choose whether to weight items in the same category proportionally or equally. For more information see Create weighted calculations.
   • Advanced. Use a custom formula to calculate the overall grade.

 Add a points overall grades calculation

1. From the Overall Grade page, under Select a Calculation Type, select Points. 
2. Categories containing items are listed first and ordered by the number of items contained. Expand a category to see its items. From here you can:
   • Unlink an item from its category. This is useful if you want to include the item in the calculation separately from the rest of the category. 
   • Exclude an item within a category from the overall grade calculation. This removes the item points from the total number of points available in the course. The item or category turns gray to indicate that it's not included in the calculation. Select the button again to include the item or category in the calculation again. 
3. For each category, you can select Edit calculation rules to verify or update the current settings:
   • Drop Scores removes the specified number of the highest or lowest grades for each category from the calculation. 
   • Use only removes all grades from the calculation except for the highest or lowest score.
4. Under Overall Grade Settings, choose how to display the overall grade — as a letter grade, percentage, points or any grading schema created in the course. When you select Points, instructors and students see the overall grade as a fraction of the total points earned, divided by the total points available in the course. For example, 745/800.
5. When you select Show to Students, students can view the overall grade and calculation details from the information button in their Gradebook. 
6. Select Save.

Add a weighted overall grades calculation

1. From the Overall Grade page, under Select a Calculation Type, select Weighted. 
2. Under Weigh gradable items within a category, select Proportionally or Equally.
   • Proportionally takes the raw scores of the included columns and categories and then divides the result by the total points possible to obtain a percentage for each item in the weighted column. The resulting percentages retain the proportional weight of each item so that items with a larger point value have more effect on the calculated grade.
   • When the columns and categories you select for the weighted column have different point values, Equally converts them to percentages. These percentages are averaged to obtain an equal value for each of the items included in the weighted column. 
3. Categories containing items are listed first and ordered by the number of items contained. Expand a category to see its items. From here you can:
   • Unlink an item from its category. This is useful if you want to include the item in the calculation separately from the rest of the category. 
   • Unlock an item or category to edit its weighting. The calculation will automatically balance all unlocked items to ensure the overall calculation equals 100%. 
   • Exclude an item within a category from the overall grade calculation. This removes the item points from the total number of points available in the course. The item or category turns gray to indicate that it's not included in the calculation. Select the button again to include the item or category in the calculation again. 
4. For each category, you can select Edit calculation rules to verify or update the current settings:
   • Drop Scores removes the specified number of the highest or lowest grades for each category from the calculation. 
   • Use only removes all grades from the calculation except for the highest or lowest score.
5. Under Overall Grade Settings, choose how to display the overall grade — as a letter grade, percentage, points, Complete/Incomplete, or any grading schema created in the course. When you select Points, instructors and students see the overall grade as a fraction of the total points earned, divided by the total points available in the course. For example, 745/800.
6. When you select Show to Students, students can view the overall grade and calculation details from the information button in their Gradebook. 
7. Select Save.

Add an advanced overall grade calculation

This option gives you greater flexibility and supports varied evaluation practices.  It is useful if you want to base the overall grade on a calculation involving one or more specific assessments.

1. From the Overall Grade page, under Select a Calculation Type, select Advanced. 

2. Start creating your formula. In the left pane, select a function, variable, or operator to add it to the right pane.

   For example, select Total in the left pane to add that function to the right pane. Expand the list and select the items to include in the formula. When you choose a category, all items in that category are included. You must choose graded items and other calculations individually. Scroll through the list to view all items. In the Variable menu, select an item to include.

   • After you make a selection in a menu, click outside of the menu to exit and save the selection in the right pane. Each element you add to the formula appears at the end. 
   • To reorder your formula, select an element and drag it to the new location.
   • To remove an element, select it and select the X. 
   • To start over completely, select Clear to remove all elements at one time.
   • NOTE: You can reuse any function, variable, or operator.
3. Under Overall Grade Settings:
   1. To divide the points earned by the total graded points, select Calculate grades based on points earned out of total graded points. If you don't select this option, the overall grade is calculated as earned points divided by the total possible points.  
   2. Under Select how the overall grade is displayed, select letter grade, percentage, points, Complete/Incomplete, or any grading schema created in the course. When you select Points, instructors and students see the overall grade as a fraction of the total points earned, divided by the total points available in the course. For example, 745/800.
   3. To allow students can view the overall grade and calculation details from the information button in their Gradebook, select Show to Students. 
4. Select Validate check the accuracy of your formula. Issues with your formula are highlighted in red. Make changes as needed. 
5. Once the formula is confirmed as valid, select Save. 

You can introduce values with up to two decimal places.

Anonymously graded assessments aren't included in calculations until you turn off anonymity.

Edit overall grade settings

To edit the configuration for the overall grade column, from the Gradebook, select Settings to open the Gradebook Settings panel. Then select Manage overall grade settings.

Related topics

Override the overall grade

Overall grade notations

Student view of the overall grade

Grade calculations

Grade item columns

Automatic grade item columns

When you create a gradable item in your course, a column is created automatically for the gradebook item. From the Gradable Items view, you can drag an item to a new location in the list.

Manual grade item columns

You can manually add grade item columns for activities that don't require submissions, such as an oral presentation, or a field trip. These items are also called manual columns or manually created items. 

There are no online submissions for the manually added items, but you can assign them grades and provide feedback. For more information, see Collect submissions offline.

Manually added items don't appear on the Course Content page. The items do appear on students' global and course grade pages. 

1. From the Grades view or Gradable items view of the gradebook, select the plus button where you want to place the grade item column and select Add Item. 
2. Enter a title, description, and due date, if applicable. 
3. Under Grading, choose the grade unit — letter, points, percentage, or complete/incomplete.
4. Enter the maximum allowed points.
5. Optionally, you can assign the item to a grade category. 
6. When you're ready for students to see this column on their grades page, select Visible to students. 
7. Select Save.