Grade Setup: Final Grade Settings

Use Final Grade Settings within Grade Setup to customize how you calculate and display final grades to students and their parents. This article describes the various option settings you can configure as a Course Administrator.

To access Final Grade Settings, click Grade Setup from the left menu of your course.

Grade Setup is not supported in courses containing more than 10,000 members.

Gradebook Scale

Select Numeric to display the overall score as a percentage. Select A+/- to display a letter grade with the overall score. If you’ve created a custom grading scale for your course, select it in the Scales section of Grade Set Up.

Calculated Grades

Check Round Period/Final Grades to round the calculated grading period and overall percentages scores to the nearest whole number.

Rounded grades are also used to determine aggregate grades, such as when the final grades for two quarters are combined for a final semester grade, and semester grades combined for the final year grade. In these scenarios, grades are first rounded at the lowest applicable level and combined, and then rounded again. For example, quarter grades are first rounded, and then added together for the semester grade; and then the semester grade is also rounded.

Example

• Quarter 1: 3 assignments, each worth 100 points

• Assignment 1: 77/100
• Assignment 2: 76/100
• Assignment 3: 1/100
• 77+76+1=144
• 144/3=51.333, rounded to 51

• Quarter 2: 2 assignments, each worth 100 points

• Assignment 1: 2/100
• Assignment 2: 77/100
• 77+2=79
• 79/2=39.5, rounded to 40

Based on those quarter grades, the course instructors, students, and parents see a semester grade of 46 in all locations the grade appears:

• Q1: 51.33, rounded to 51
• Q2: 39.5, rounded to 40
• Q1+Q2=91
• Semester grade: 91/2=45.5, rounded to 46

Or

ROUND((ROUND(51.33)) + (ROUND(39.5))/2) = 46

You cannot select this option if you have applied a custom point-based scale to the Final Grade scale in step 1.

Control Grading Columns in Gradebook

Course override column adds an additional blank overall grade column to your gradebook in which you can manually enter an overall score for your students. The override column displays to the left of the calculated grade column and is indicated by the yellow pencil eraser icon. Students only see the score you entered in this column and not their calculated scores. Entering an override grade is optional; the calculated overall grade displays when you don't enter an override.

Based on the grade data in the screenshot above, Edna's overall grade will display as 94 percent on her grade report.
Since the instructor has not entered a score for Herbert in the override column, his overall grade will display on his grade report as the calculated grade — 95.66 percent.

Grades in the override column do not sync back to your SIS gradebook.

Hide Grading Category score columns: Grading Category columns display the average grade for each category in your Gradebook. Enabling this option hides category summary grade columns from the Gradebook.

Grade Period Override Column adds an override column for each grading period for the course. When enabled, entering an override grade is still optional; the calculated grade displays when you don't enter an override.

Based on the grade data in the screenshot above, John's grading period grade for Semester 2 will display as 92 percent on his student report. Additionally, that grade is now used instead of his calculated Semester 2 grade to calculate his overall score in the course. Since the instructor has not entered scores into any of the override columns for Edna or Herbert, they will see the scores in the Calculated column of their student grade reports.

Total points column adds a column that displays each student's total points earned for the entire marking period. The total points possible for the course displays in the column header. The Total Points column displays to the right of the calculated grade column. This option is useful for courses that use total points instead of a traditional grade scale, for example, or any gamified class or course, as well.

Why doesn't the Total Points score match my student's grade?

The points displayed in the Total Points column reflect the total points possible for the course. If you have excused a student from an assignment, the Total Points column does not update to reflect the new number of points possible. For example, if a course has 200 points available, and you've entered the excused exception for a student from one 50 point assignment, the total points listed in the Gradebook and student's grade summary is still 200, not 150.

However, the student's percentage does update to reflect the excused assignment; in this case, the student is graded on a scale of 150 possible points, not 200.

1. 1. 1. 1. In this example, it appears that John Davis has received 140 out of a possible 200 points for a score of 70 percent.
         2. However, John's posted score is 93.33 percent...
         3. Because he's been excused from a 50 point assignment, meaning his actual percentage score is 140/150.

The same apparent discrepancy also displays in the grade summaries available to students and their parents:

Similarly, if you have Individually Assigned an assignment to a student or grading group, the Total Points column displays the total points possible for all assignments in the course. Students who were not assigned the material will still see Total Points reflect the possible points for the individually assigned materials:

The Total Points column was created with the intent that an instructor would use the total points achieved to give a grade to a student using the manual grade override column. As a best practice: If the grading process for your course uses the total points column, we recommend checking the Hide overall grades in student grade report option, so the course grade is hidden from non-faculty viewers of a student's grade. This release does not enforce nor provide an automatic calculation of a student course grade based on the total points achieved. Where a course score needs to be calculated based on a percentage of points obtained from materials assigned individually or via a group to a student, that is already provided by the calculated grading columns.

Exception Code Settings

Disable automatic scoring of missing exceptions as 0 allows Course Administrators to use the Missing exception code without penalizing students with a score of 0. 

If you change this setting after any grades are entered for a course, it will affect all graded assignments for that course that have been marked as Missing. 

Visibility Settings

Hide overall grades in student grade report excludes an overall score from student reports and the students' Grades tab in the course. This may be a suitable option if your school does not report overall grades for the course across multiple grading periods.

Hide grading period grades in student grade report excludes grading period scores from student reports and the students' Grades tab in the course. You cannot customize which grading period grades you hide or display. Hiding the grading period grade from student reports also hides the category-level grades from the student report.

Hide total points achieved in student grade report excludes total points achieved from student reports and the students' Grades tab in the course.

If you hide the overall grade, the student does not see any overall grade in your course. Students see neither the calculated grade nor the score you enter in the override column when you select Hide overall grades from student reports. This also applies to hiding and overriding grading period grades.