Disabling and Clearing Automatic Zeros in the Grade Centre

Automatic Zeros is a new feature in the Blackboard Ultra Grade Centre which automatically assigns a mark of 0 to any assignment where the due date has passed and a student has not submitted. This could be useful for instructors who use Blackboard Assignments and ask Blackboard to post marks automatically once every student has a grade.

Whilst a useful feature, at the University of Lincoln this can be problematic, as a mark of 0 is often considered differently to a non-submission, and therefore it could be misleading to award a 0 mark when the student did not attempt the assignment.

At present, this feature is enabled by default for all module sites, however the Digital Education team are working with Blackboard to review this process.

How to Disable Automatic Zeros (and Clear Existing Automatic Zeros)

1. Firstly, access the Grade Centre within your Blackboard Ultra Module, and locate the Settings icon.

2. Secondly, scroll through the menu side-bar and find the Automatic Zeros section. There should be a tick-box that is activated.
3. Next, click on the green tick-box to de-activate the automatic zero setting, this will produce another menu pop-up.

4. Lastly, you can choose whether to keep or clear the automatic zeros that have been assignments. Please note: Clearing automatic zeros will only remove zeros that Blackboard assigned automatically to non-submitters, it will not clear any marks of 0 that you awarded as the marker.

For more information about the Blackboard Ultra Grade Centre please access the following weblink: Blackboard Ultra Grade Centre – Navigate Grading (Web Link, Opens in a New Tab).