Easily keep track of grades in two systems with Grades Journey.

Grades Journey enables institutions to automate the exchange of assignment and grade data between their Student Information Systems (SIS) and Blackboard Learn. With Grades Journey, the SIS can optionally define columns in the Grade Center, graders can post the gradebook for retrieval, and the SIS can retrieve submitted grades. Administrators can configure Grades Journey to control how graders and instructors use Grades Journey.

You can implement the Grades Journey interfaces using RESTful web services or LIS 2.0 (SOAP) web services.

Grades Journey Services are included in Blackboard Learn SaaS deployments. Due to wide variation in information systems, SIS feature licenses, implementations, policies, and business practices, grades exchange processes are complex. Implementation services from Blackboard Consulting are recommended. Blackboard Consulting can also assist with custom grades exchange solutions or solutions for older versions of Blackboard Learn.

Please note the following actions are currently not supported for Grades Journey.

  • Automatic approval of courses
  • Creation of manual column on flat file

Compatibility for Learn Ultra

The Grades Journey feature described here is applicable only for Original Experience courses and is implemented through a Building Block included with Learn. Similar capabilities, compatible with both Original and Ultra courses are provided through the Consulting Central version of the Grades Journey feature available through the Consulting Central interface on the System Administration page.

A subscription to the “Standard” set of features is included with the Learn service. Clients may purchase a subscription to an additional set of “Premium” features for a fee.

Implementation and End-User documentation for both Standard and Premium features are published on Behind the Blackboard:

Anthology recommends clients implement or move to the Consulting Central version of Grades Journey for future compatibility.

Installation and configuration for Learn Original

The Grades Journey Service is off by default. To use the tools, administrators must first make the Blackboard Grades Journey Service Building Block available.

Using Grades Journey

After you've installed and configured Grades Journey, begin using it at your institution to share information between Learn and your SIS. Administrators, instructors, and graders use Grades Journey differently:

Grader activities

Users can approve grades for transfer if their role is appropriately configured in the Grades Journey properties.

Approve grades for transfer - Grade approval required

  1. A grader enters the Grade Center for a given course.
  2. The grader selects Manage and selects Grade Approval and Transfer.
  3. Note that if lock is turned on, this will show a confirmation page and, if confirmed, a read only page will be displayed and the steps below will not apply.
  4. If the grader wishes to approve all grades for transfer, they select the checkbox to select the course and select the Approve Grades button and confirm. The status updates to indicate approval.
  5. If the grader wishes to approve only certain grade columns or grades, they must select the checkbox to select the course and select the Grade Column Approval and Transfer button.
  6. The grader sees all columns eligible for extraction.
    • If the grader wishes to approve all grades for a given column or columns, they select the checkbox for the desired columns and select the Approve button to confirm. The status updates to indicate approval.
    • If the grader wishes to only approve certain grades, they select the desired grade column checkboxes and select the Grade Approval and Transfer button. Note that when any grade column is approved, the course is marked as approved.
  7. The grader then selects the desired grade, and selects the Approve button to confirm. The status updates to indicate approval. Note that when any grade is approved, the corresponding column is also marked as approved.
  8. If the grader wishes to revert an approval, they navigate to the appropriate item, select it, and select Unapprove to confirm.

Extract files

You can configure Grades Journey to use a local transfer method so an extract file is saved to your local server. After the extract is complete, the file will be located in the path you specified.

  1. Go to the Administrator Panel > Building Blocks > Installed Tools.
  2. Locate Blackboard Grade Journey Service in the list and open its settings.
  3. Select Grade Extract Settings (Outgoing Data).
  4. Under Result Transfer Settings, refer to the Path field. When the Transfer Method is set to Local, the extracted file will be saved in the location specified in Path.

Administrator activities

Approving grades for transfer

Administrators can approve grades as needed on behalf of graders.

Navigate to System Admin > Tools > Grade Approval and Transfer. Search for the course using the course ID, name, or other details. In the search results, select the course you're interested in. Choose Extract Grades, Approve Grades, Unapprove Grades, or Grade Column Approval and Transfer as appropriate.

Repair grade columns (for REST and LIS integrations)

For implementations in which the SIS sources Grade Center columns, it's possible that the Grade Center columns could be manually deleted in the Grade Center. This doesn't happen often, but accidents can happen.

  1. If a grade column is deleted and notifications are set up, those users should receive an email. This email will contain the batch_uid for the deleted column. An administrator can fix this issue using the batch_uid.
  2. A grader or administrator goes to the Grade Center for the affected course and manually creates a replacement column. The new column should have the same settings as the one that was deleted. Make it weighted or manual according to the original column's settings.
  3. An administrator then navigates to System Admin > Tools > Grade Approval and Transfer.
  4. Locate the course, select it, and choose Grade Column Repair.
  5. For the newly created column, enter the batch_uid of the column that was accidentally deleted and select Update Batch Uids.
  6. The column is now repaired and the transactions should continue to work as expected.

Delete grade status information

The system purposely keeps all grade status information stored until an administrator manually deletes it.

  1. To delete, navigate to System Admin > Tools > Grade Status Delete.
  2. Select the date for the delete and select Submit. The system deletes all status information prior to the date specified.

Lock on approval

You can enable a setting in Grades Journey that locks the Grade Center when users approve and transfer grade information. The setting helps make sure that the grade data in Learn stays consistent with the information contained in the grade extract file.

If you enable this setting for your institution, users will see a warning that tells them their Grade Center will be locked for that course if they continue with the transfer. The user will still be able to see the grades for that course, but it is a read-only view and they won't be able to edit.

Unlock tool

If an instructor or teaching assistant notices an error after they've extracted the grade information, they may request that you unlock the Grade Center for that course. In these cases, you can unlock the Grade Center for a user after an extract occurs.

  1. Navigate to System Admin > Tools > Grade Center Course Unlock Tool.
  2. Enter a course id and select Submit.
  3. If the course is found, the unlock flag is reset and then graders can update grades and re-extract or re-schedule.
  4. If no course is found, an error is displayed.

Grades Journey implementation methods

  Rest API LIS
Grade Column Provisioning Weighted, Total, or Manual Weighted or Manual
Content Provisioning Assignment, Test, Wiki, Blog, Journal, Self, Peer, Discussion, Survey None
Grade Values Updates No Manual
Grade Schema Provisioning Yes Yes
Grade Extract Yes Yes

The following guides detail how to implement Grades Journey.