Office Of Smith IT
Smith School of Business
Van Munching Hall, Rm 3520
College Park, MD 20742
301-405-2269
helpme@rhsmith.umd.edu
bbhelp@rhsmith.umd.edu
(for Blackboard Requests)

Office Hours
Mon-Fri (9 a.m. - 5 p.m.)

Using Blackboard Gradebook (Grade Center)

GUIDE to USE GRADEBOOK (or GRADE CENTER)

• Quick Reference Guide to Grade Center
• More in Depth Guide of Using BB Grade Center - Step-by-step Instructions
  Including instructions of:
  >> Adding or Modifying a Grade Column
  >> Adding or Modifying Weighted Columns
  >> Organizing the Grade Center
  >> Entering and Modifying Grades in a Grade Column
  >> Create and Use Smart View
  >> Downloading and Uploading Gradebook Items
• Gradebook Smart Views
  - Especially useful for course site with multiple sections
• Upload Gradebook to UMEG

Blackboard Grade Center helps faculty check and grade student online assignments, test, presentations, etc. Check the above documents to guide you use Gradebook. The tips below highlighted a few areas that you may interested. 

Hide a Gradebook Item from Student View:

You may want to hide an item in Gradebook from student view from time to time. To do so, go to Modify Column from the item dropdown arrow , then select "No" for the Options "Show this column in My Grades" (see in the screen-shot). Then only you and your TA can see this column in Gradebook, students will not see such item in My Grades page from course menu.

 If you do not want to see an item in Gradebook in your view, you can hidden the item by going to Manage > Organize Grade Center in Gradebook.
 

Downloading and Uploading Grades to BB Course:

To upload grades to your BB course in Gradebook area, you will need to download the Gradebook data in you course first, (so that the student identifications in your file could match whatever in your online course). Here is the steps that you want to follow. Detailed instructions can be found in the above In Depth Guide as  well .

1). Download current Gradebook data: Go to your course Control Panel -> Gradebook -> dropdown arrow on Manage icon -> Download.

Please make sure that the Gradebook items only contains letters, numbers and underscore, no special characters. Or you may encounter error when trying to upload grades.

2). Modify or add scores to the downloaded Excel file.

Note that the Total and Weighted Total columns are included in a Gradebook download. However, these columns will not be included in a Gradebook Upload because they are generated by calculations within the Gradebook. The instructor cannot manipulate the data for these areas.

3). Upload the Gradebook to the course. Click on dropdown arrow on Manage icon -> Upload.   

Gradebook Smart Views

With a one-minute setup, instructors can use "Smart View" feature in Blackboard to create a display of the spreadsheet that shows only those students associated with a specific section. It is especially useful in multiple section courses by helping faculty to Manage Student Grades by Sections easily.

Upload Grades to UMEG

At each end of semester, instructor can upload your final grades in Gradebook to UMEG by following the instruction UploadGradestoUMEG.pdf.

Backup Grades in Gradebook:

When a student leaves the University, their grade information is no longer accessible from Blackboard even when the course is still visible. Make it a practice to download your Grade Center to Excel at the end of every semester to Backup Grades in your BB Gradebook (112kb). 

File Naming Conventions - Important!!   (Naming Files and Gradebook Columns )

When try to upload a Microsoft Word or PowerPoint file as an attachment, make sure your file name does not contains special characters (such as = ! , \ " ' # @ ( ) space), or you may get an error message.

When you create columns in the Gradebook or ask students to submit digital Assignments, file naming convention is also important to note. Warn your students about it, and don't use them in your Gradebook Column names, to avoid the potential problem.