Introduction to the Grade Centre

To check if a student has access to Blackboard: access the main Grade Centre (as detailed above) and check the list of names in the left column of the interactive spreadsheet. If the name is present, then the student has access to the Blackboard course. If the name is not present, then 95% of the time this means that the student does not have access (we will look into the other 5% in the question, “The student seems to have access to Blackboard, but I cannot find them on the Grade Centre list. Where are they?”).

Once a student is registered in Campus Solutions (CS), it takes between 5 and 24 hours for the enrolment to come through into Blackboard, and for the student to access the course. If 24 hours have passed and the student still doesn’t have access, the most likely issue is that there is something wrong with the student’s enrolment in CS (maybe the student hasn’t paid course fees, or has an interruption in their record).

On the rare occasion that the CS record is perfect and the student still doesn’t have access, please contact eLearning and we will follow this up with the Integration Team. Please include details of exactly when the student registered in CS (exact time/date please).

Sometimes you just can’t find someone in the interactive spreadsheet, but you know that they have access to the course. Should this happen, it is likely that the row in the spreadsheet that contains the student’s name has been manually hidden by someone. To check this, click on the “Manage” button at the top of the page, then choose “Row Visibility”. You will get a full list of students. Check to see if your student is here and if they are “hidden”. If the student is hidden, tick the box next to their name and return to the top before clicking the “Show” button. Please remember to click “Submit” before leaving the page. When you return to the Grade Centre, the student will be visible.

You should always check several (if not all) courses, to give you a fuller picture of the student’s behaviour.

The easiest information to obtain about a student is the date that they last entered Blackboard, and the details surrounding their assessments and tests.

To view when the student last entered the Blackboard course: go to the Grade Centre and look at the column that is marked “Last access”. If this column is missing, then it has probably been hidden to make it easier for the Unit Co-Ordinator to navigate the course. To show this column, click on “Manage” > “Column Organisation”, locate and tick the “last access” item in the list and then click “Show/hide” > “Show selected columns” > “Submit”. You will find the column is now visible in the Grade Centre. To hide this column when you are finished, repeat these steps, using the “hide” option instead.

To view details of an assessment: go to the main Grade Centre and locate the student in the list. Scroll towards the right using the bar at the bottom of the interactive spreadsheet. Most columns represent work that the student should complete at some point – note, however, that some columns may not be relevant to that particular student and will always be blank. If the columns for the assessments show a “- -“, then the student has not completed that piece of work. If the column shows a score or a tick, the student has completed that piece of work. If the column shows a small icon of a blue clock, then the student has started something, but not finished it.

To take a closer look at the assessment, hover over the cell containing the score/tick/clock and you will see an arrow icon (action link) appear. Click this to reveal a drop-down menu. From the drop-down menu, you can see the dates/times that all the attempts have been submitted – you can click each attempt to have a look at what the student submitted or click “View grade details” for an overview.