The Blackboard Grade Centre stores all student grades and submission data for Blackboard assignments and tests in a course. It is possible to manually mark submissions from the Grade Centre, and it can be used to calculate overall weighted grades or averages for multiple assessments.
Navigating the Grade Centre
The Grade Centre is accessed from the control panel. Expand the ‘Grade Centre’ section to display the links.
Needs Marking will take you to a list of items that need to be manually graded, such as written assignments, journal or blog entries, or graded discussion boards. There is more information on this in the ‘Grade Details and Needs Marking’ section below.
Full Grade Centre is the default view and shows all data. Underneath this, you may have other links to ‘smart views’ which show customisable sections of the Grade Centre.
Watch the following video for a general tour of the default layout.
Watch the following video for instructions on creating a smart view. More information on smart views is available here.
A general tour and look at the default layout and smart views.
Grade Centre Columns
Watch the following video to learn how to show and hide grades to students (including what not to do!) and how to organise your Grade Centre columns.
Watch the following video to learn about weighted total and total columns, and how to set the external grade.
More information on the different types of columns and the external grade is available here.
Learn how to show and hide grades to students, organise columns and generate weighted totals.
Grade Details and the ‘Needs Marking’ page
Grade Centre Symbols
Legend
- Blue circle = attempt in progress (see the video on viewing and editing grade details and attempts for how to submit on a student’s behalf)
- Orange triangle = mark has been manually changed
- Yellow exclamation mark = attempt requires manual marking (see manual marking at the bottom of this section)
Quick Edits
To quickly edit a student mark in the Grade Centre:
- navigate to the relevant cell in the Grade Centre
- click in the cell and type in the new mark
- press ‘enter’
- the manual edit will now be indicated by a little orange triangle as in the image below.
View and Edit Grade Details and Attempts
Watch the following video to learn how to: view student attempts and grade details, ignore or exempt an attempt, manually override a mark, and submit an ‘in progress’ attempt on a student’s behalf.
More information on grade details is available here.
Manual Marking
Submissions in Blackboard will sometimes require manual marking. Blackboard assignments are usually file or text uploads which can’t be auto-marked, and Blackboard assessments can include essay questions which also require manual intervention. When items like this are submitted they are indicated in the Grade Centre by a yellow exclamation mark.
Watch the following video to learn how to manually mark student submissions and use the ‘Needs Marking’ page.
More information on the ‘Needs Marking’ page is available here.
Learn what to do with student results, including quick editing grades, viewing attempts and submission details, ignoring/exempting submissions and manual marking using the ‘Needs Marking’ page.
Working Offline
It is possible to download Grade Centre data and work with it offline.
Watch the following video for instructions on how to download the grade centre data as a spreadsheet, and re-upload once edited.
Learn how to download grade centre data and edit offline.