BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. Please advise me on the preferred method for archiving Blackboard course materials and gradebooks. I have exported the course, however that does not include the gradebook. I have exported the gradebook to an Excel file, however, that does not seem like an ideal solution for security reasons.

A. Archive in Blackboard is not an option for instructors because it preserves all student records associated with a course.

You are correct to use Export for course content and to export your Grade center. Once you have saved your Grade Center Excel file, you can password-protect it, for security. For a free Microsoft Office tutorial on password-protecting your spreadsheet, visit Set a Password in an Excel Spreadsheet .

Q. Is there a way to grade assignments anonymously in Blackboard? 

A. You can do this in Blackboard if you use the Assignment Tool to create the assignment. For anonymous grading, each student is assigned a number, such as Student 8, and attempts appear in random order.

Follow these steps to use anonymous grading:

1. In the control panel, under Grade Center, click on Full Grade Center.
2. Click the chevron beside the name of the assignment and select Grade Anonymously.
3. On the Grade Assignment page, grade the first student’s submission, then move to the next student using the Save and Next button in the upper right corner of the window.
4. After you grade the last student’s submission, click the Save and Exit button in the upper right corner.

If you choose Save and Exit before you are finished grading all of your students, when you return to complete grading anonymously, the remainder of the students in the class will have been assigned  new random numbers.

Q. I’ve been on the new Blackboard getting ready for my summer class.  In the Grade Center under “Manage” there used to be a way to download and upload to/from Excel.  I don’t see it in this version.   How do I do it?

A. To download or upload your Grade Center, click the “Work Offline” button in the upper right corner of the Grade Center and select Download or Upload.

Q. When I go into the Grade Center to add grades, I double-click in the cell where I want to enter a grade. When the little dash before the grade disappears, the grade doesn’t add into the total and I can’t figure out how to manually make the grade add into the total. Is there a better way for me to be entering grades?

A. You will need to remove the dash when entering grades. The dash is just a place holder until you enter a grade.  If you leave it before the grade it will calculate as a minus and your grade totals will be wrong.

To fix the problem for grades you’ve already entered, click in a cell with the negative grade once to highlight the whole grade, then click again after the dash, then use the backspace button to delete it.  When you are finished,  click outside of the cell where you changed the grade and you will be prompted to click OK to save the change.

Q. Sometimes when I have created an assignment using the Assignment Tool, I have not indicated the total possible points for the item, so Blackboard does not include those points in the Total column in the Grade Center for each person.  Is there any way I can “retroactively” tell Blackboard the total points possible for a given assignment?

A. You can modify an assignment to add points possible after it has already been graded. Here’s how:

1. Go to the assignment’s column in the Grade Center and click on the chevron beside the assignment name.
2. Click on Edit.
3. On the Edit Assignment page, under 3. Grading, enter the number of points possible for the assignment.
4. Click Submit.

If you have already entered a grade for any student who completed the assignment before you modified points possible,  you will need to go back through View Grade Details in the Grade Center to edit that grade.

Now the Total column will include the points you give each student for the assignment.

Q. All of my grades for one student are missing – in fact, her whole row of grades and her name is missing. Can you fix this?

A. There are two possible solutions if a student’s name and grades are missing from the grade center:

1. If her name is at the end of the alphabet and has been displaying at the end of the list of students, you can try one of these two solutions:

a. Reverse the alpha order twice in the Last Name column and the last row will show – you can do this by clicking on the yellow triangle in the column header.

OR

b. Change the Grade Center view from the default “Full Grade Center” to “Preview of My Grades.”

2. It may be that you have inadvertently hidden this student in your grade center. Click on Manage > Show/Hide Users in the grade center. If you see the student’s name grayed out, select it by clicking in the box to the left, and click Show Users; then click Submit.

Q. I cannot see more than one student in the Grade Center.  How can I get the Grade Center to list more than one student? 

A. There are several possibilities for getting the Grade Center to list more students:

1. Remove (or hide) any unnecessary tool bars from the browser display.
2. If you are using a Windows PC, press the F11 key on the keyboard to see a full browser screen display. To return to the regular display, press F11 again.
3. Adjust the screen resolution on your computer monitor. You must have your screen resolution set to 1024 by 768 pixels in order to see more than one person in your Grade Center view. To set your screen resolution:

• Click on the Start button on your Desktop page.
• Choose Settings > Control Panel.
• In the Control Panel, click on Display.
• In the Display dialog box, click on Settings.
• In the Settings dialog box, locate the Screen Resolution bar and move the marker until you see the 1024 by 768 pixels appear under the marker arrow. Click on Apply.
• You will receive a message that your desktop has been reconfigured. Click on Yes.
• Your new settings will be put into place. Refresh your Blackboard browser window and you should now see more than one student appearing in the Grade Center.

To adjust screen resolution on a Mac:

• Select System Preferences from your Dock or within Applications.
• Under Hardware, select Displays.
• Select the highest available resolution.

Q. How can I, as faculty, see the maximum points available for a given grade item and for the course as a whole?  I see what I’ve assigned to students, and their totals, but not the original “points possible.”

A. You can see points possible for any item for which points are assigned in the Grade Center by clicking on the double arrow beside the column heading and selecting Quick Column Information. You can also see this information by clicking in any cell in a column and looking at the Grade Information Bar, located over the column headers in the spreadsheet: this row shows grade type, points possible, how the grade is displayed (score, percentage, etc.) and whether the grade is visible to students.

 You can see points possible for the entire course by reviewing Quick Column Information for the Total column.

 Q. I am entering grades, and I would like to view only one student at a time in the Grade Center – is there a way to do that?

A. You can work with only one student at a time in the spreadsheet view of the Grade Center by creating a Smart View. Here are the steps to create a Smart View:

1. Click the Manage menu button in the Full Grade Center.
2. Select Smart Views.
3. Click the Create Smart View button.
4. Type a name for the view and, optionally, a description.
5. Under Selection Criteria, select User for Type of View.
6. Under Users select the student you want to grade. If you want to select more than one student at a time, click on the first student you want to grade, then hold down the Ctrl key and click on other students you want to include.
7. Under Filter Results, select the Grade Center columns you want to display; the default is All Columns.
8. Click Submit, then select the Smart View you created; you are now ready to enter grades.
9. To return to the view of the full Grade Center after grading in a Smart View, in the Control Panel click Grade Center > Full Grade Center.

 Q. I selected “Percentage” as the primary display for scores for a column in my Grade Center, but  the correct percentage is not displaying.

A. Simply entering a Score for a column that uses the Primary Display of “Percentage” will not calculate the Percentage. To calculate a Score’s Percentage select “Score” from the Primary Display drop-down menu and select “Percentage” from the Secondary Display drop-down menu.