Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Leadership

Accessing the Gradebook

Look for Grades in your course navigation bar. If you don’t see it, check under More.

CUNY Brightspace Homepage, with More dropdown menu, then select on grade

2. If it’s not under More, go to Course Admin. Grades is listed under Assessments.

Brightspace interface showing a red navigation menu and then sections like "Assignments" and "Grades," with some options highlighted in green

Set Up Weighted Grades – the quick way

In Grades, select Settings (the gear icon at the upper right

2. Click on the Calculation Options tab and select Weighted, under Grading System.

Calculation Options tab with Weighted selected as the Grading System

3. Under Final Grade Released, choose Calculated Final Grade or Adjusted Final Grade

(recommended)

4. Under Grade Calculations – Ungraded Items, Choose Drop ungraded items

(recommended) or Treat ungraded items as 0

5. Click Save

Final Grade Released page with "Adjusted Final Grade," "Drop ungraded items," and "Automatically keep final grades updated" selected.

Create Categories

Go to Manage Grades in the Gradebook

Open the New drop-down menu and select Category

New Category is selected under Manage Grades

Enter a Name.
Enter a percentage for the Weight

A Name and weight is entered for a new category.

4. Select an option under Distribution. Select the third option if you want all items to carry the same weight within category. Brightspace will do the calculations for you.

Three options for Distribution of weights: manually; by points across all items in the category; and distribute weight evently across all items.

5. Select Display Options. This is where you can control how your students see their grades.

6. Click “Override display options for this item” if you want to change the options under “Show.”

7. Click Save and Close.

Display options for students: class average; grade distribution.<br />
Points grade, weighted grade; Grade scheme symbol; and Grade scheme color are options under Show. Override options for this item must be selected to change these options.

Create Grade Items

To add a grade book item for activities (such as Participation) that were not created using the Assignment, Discussion, or Quizzes tool, go to Manage Grades in the Gradebook

Click on the New drop-down menu and select Item

New Item is selected under Manage Grades

2. Choose a grade item type.

Grade Item Types include Numeric (8 out of 10) and Selectbox ("very good" or "B+")

3. Give it a name.

4. Enter a description (optional)

Give it a name. </p>
<p>Enter a description (optional)

5. Select desired Display Options then click Save and Close.

Grade display options include points grade, weighted grade, grade scheme symbol, grade scheme color and option to override set display options

To edit the options of any grade book item or category

Click on the downward arrow to the right of the item or category name
Click Edit.

Add Items to Categories

In the Manage Grades tab, select items to add to a category by clicking thecheckbox to the left of each item.
Click Bulk Edit

Interface of a grade management system with highlighted options for bulk editing grades and verifying grade weights.

3. Scroll to Category, the last column on the right, click on the drop-down menu to select a Category for each item

4. Click Save.

Screenshot of a grade management interface showing options for editing items and categories with selected dropdowns and highlighted step

Resolve error messages in Manage Grades

The final total weight should equal 100%. To resolve the errors in the Manage Grades view, redistribute the weights for categories and/or grade items.

Select the item or category name to open the pop-up menu.
Click Edit.

3. Change the Weight under Grading.

Brightspace screen with dropdown menus and green arrows pointing at "Edit" and "Assignments.

4. Click Save and Close.