You can use the Blackboard Grade Center as your ally in order to manage your class and help your students succeed.
First, the Grade Center must be set up to include all gradable activities posted in the Syllabus. Any gradable items you set up in your Blackboard course will have a respective Grade Center column. For activities taking place outside Blackboard, you can create Grade Center columns and post grades manually in Blackboard.
Set up the Total Grade as a simple total or as a weighted total. It is important you check if the Total Grade is accurate using the grades of a particular student, or by posting grades for your preview user account. The Total Column works as a running total; it uses only grade center columns with a grade entry. Make sure you add a grade of zero for students who missed past assignments; in this way, the Total Grade will be up to date. The Total Grade is the primary way to monitor your students.
Second, make the Total Grade the External Grade column (see step-by-step on how to set up the External Grade column).
This column provides data to the Course Analytics tool that provides in-depth data regarding student activity (see July 2019 blog post).
Keep your Grade Center at a minimum. Delete old columns no longer needed. If you need to hide columns, make sure you hide them from students first, before you hide them from the instructor view.
You can organize your Grade Center by using the top action bar: Manage/Column Organization.
Advanced features of the Grade Center include Smart Views. A smart view allows you to select rows (users) or columns (gradable activities) to show in a separate view in the Grade Center. For example, one of the smart views created by default in Blackboard is the Assignments smart view. If you click it, you will be able to see only the grade center columns for the course assignments. Another popular use for this feature is smart views for groups. In this way, you can review the grades for a specific group of students.
Remember you need to use Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome for the best Blackboard experience.
Please come to see us at one of our training sessions about the Grade Center; thank you!
The UAMS eLearning Team