BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. I added a duplicate column just to record grades for a quiz. But when I click a cell to record a grade, it turns dark gray and will not let me record the grade.

A. You have probably created the column via the Add Calculated Column choice rather than Add Grade Center column choice. Calculated Columns are designed to compute scores based on the values of other columns, e.g., calculating the average of five columns, or dropping the lowest score of a series of columns and then totaling the remaining columns. To check the type of column you have created:

1. Click on the chevron icon beside the title of the column.
2. Click on Modify Column.
3. If you have a Select Columns option available to you in panel number 3 you have created a Calculated Column.
4. Go back to your Grade Center.
5. Find the mistakenly created calculated column.
6. Click on the chevron icon.
7. Choose Remove Column.

Check out this Creating a Grade Center Item video for instructions on how to create a column to manually enter grades.

The Blackboard Question of the Week Blog provides a weekly opportunity for Loyola faculty, students, and staff to find out the answers to questions sent to Loyola’s Blackboard Support team.

Each week, the Blackboard @ Loyola team will choose one question from the many received that represents the concerns of many others and will post the answer in the blog. You can read the Question of the Week by clicking on the link on Loyola’s Technology homepage, or you can subscribe using your Web browser or a Web-based feed reader such as Bloglines or Google Reader to get the most recent Question of the Week delivered to you.  

For support information, visit our contact page .  To see answers to the most pressing questions of the week, click on the link for the Blackboard Question of the Week Blog, under News and Events on the Information Technology Services homepage .