Using the Grade Centre

The Grade Centre is organised with each student on a module as rows and columns representing assessment points.  Each time a new Blackboard assignment, Blackboard test, or Turnitin assignment is created; a new column is automatically made in the Grade Centre to store the data.  Additional ‘Calculated Columns’ can be added to the Grade Centre to display weighted totals if required.

Each column in the Grade Centre can be hidden from, or made available to students.  Features such as ‘Release Date’ on Turnitin assignments automate the release of grades by making a column available to students at a specified time.  Blackboard assignments and tests do not have this automated feature and so grades need to be released manually.

Recommendations for the Grade Centre

To get the most out of the Grade Centre, we recommend that all module assessment data is stored in Blackboard.  This includes assessment points that are not linked to a Blackboard or Turnitin assignment (such as an assessed presentation), and that all assessments are graded out of 100.

You should then hide the ‘Total’ column in the Grade Centre from students.  The Total column is a sum of all assessments for a module and so does not represent weighting and will show a misleading number to students.

You can then establish a ‘Weighted Total’ column, which combines the different assessment points with appropriate weightings, and make this column the ‘External Grade’.

Details on managing the columns and features of the Grade Centre can be found in the support resources below. 

Support resources