This guide contains instructions on how to manually enter grades in the gradebook and how to release final grades.
Important Reminder about Final Adjusted Grades:
Faculty should not release final adjusted grades in Brightspace until the students' course end date and up to 7 days after. Release final grades before that time frame can cause serious financial repercussions for students.
If you have questions about final grades, please contact your Program Director or asktei@sjcme.edu.
Brightspace's Gradebook is a robust but useful tool. Student submissions in Dropbox and quiz results (on certain quiz types) can be set up to go directly to gradebook which will cut down your grading time.
If you need help with the gradebook in your online course, please contact asktei@sjcme.edu.
Saint Joseph's College Grading Policy
When students submit an assignment, the instructor will grade it and give students feedback within 7 days, and they will respond to email within one business day unless they have notified the students within Brightspace about time away for travel or medical reasons. If the instructor will be gone for a period of time, students can expect that the assignment will be graded within 7 days of their return.
Why Would I Manually Enter Grades in Gradebook?
1| Assignments Outside of Brightspace
Your course might have assignments that take place outside of Brightspace; for example, students might be contributing to a wiki or on an external website, or they may earn credit for volunteering as part of a service learning experience. In these cases, you'll need to enter scores for the assignment in the grades area.
2| Incomplete or Skipped Assignments
Sometimes a student will not complete or will completely skip an assignment. When this happens, you'll need to enter a "0" score in the Grades area for the student for that assignment. Otherwise, Brightspace automatically "drops" the assignment from the grade calculation, so it won't be factored into the student's overall grade. The student's final grade will be higher than it should be.
Watch this video to learn how to manually enter grades in the Gradebook area.
Note: If you prefer written instructions, please view the PDF below the video or in the Written Instructions box on the right-hand side of the page.
Manually Enter Grades in Gradebook (2.38 minutes)
Why Should I Release the Final Adjusted Grade?
Once students have completed all of the assignments in your course, you'll need to release their final grades in Brightspace so that they post to Campus Cafe. While Brightspace automatically calculates the Final Calculated Grade for you, you must manually calculate then release the Final Adjusted Grade, which is a student's official final grade. However, you must not import the grades from the Final Calculated Grade area into the Final Adjusted Grade area and release the grades until the student's course end date and up to 7 days after (important: importing the grades into the Final Adjusted grade column any sooner than the course end date can have serious financial repercussions for students).
Also, please note that the only grade that should be adjusted (if needed) is the student's score (not the score out-of).
Note: If you prefer written instructions, please see the PDF below the video or in the Written Instruction box on the right-hand side of the page.
Release Final Adjusted Grades (2 minutes)
I need help setting up the gradebook in my Brightspace course.
We are happy to assist you in the creation or review of your gradebook. Just send an email to asktei@sjcme.edu, and someone will be in touch to work with you.
What does the gradebook look like to a student?
The student view for gradebook is much different from the faculty view. See example below:
If you have questions about what students see in their gradebook, contact askalibrarian@sjcme.edu.