There are several ways to customize your gradebook. Gradebook settings help to create a gradebook that fits your teaching style. The instructions in this document will explain how to set up the gradebook using the gradebook settings.
From the gradebook, select the Gradebook settings icon.
Gradebook settings icon
Grade Schemas
Grade schemas map assessment scores to percentages, letter grades or some other notation for reporting performance.
Select Manage Grade Schema to view your current grading schema.
Student Performance
You can receive alerts in your activity stream about student performance and activity based on the following.
- Overall grade below or equal to the specified points or percentage. NOTE: The overall grade must be configured.
- Number of missed due dates above or equal to a specific number.
- Number of Days since last access above or equal to a specific number.
Next is the View Course Activity link. It allows instructors to view the Course Activity report. The report shows student performance and activity in the course such as overall grade, missed due dates, hours in course, and days since last access. This report will not display results if there’s not enough data in your course. NOTE: The overall grade and hours in the course update every 24 hours.
There is also a checkbox that if enabled, will send activity stream notifications to students based on low overall grade and days since last access settings.
Automatic Zeros
Instructors can choose to automatically assign zeros to missing work past the due date. If enabled, students and groups can still submit work after an automatic zero is assigned to improve their score. After which, you can grade as normal.
Update Jan 2025: The “Assign Automatic Zeros for Past Due Work” option is now off by default for new Ultra courses. Existing courses remain unchanged. This prevents students from automatically receiving zeros for late assignments. Instructors can enable this feature in the Gradebook Settings.
If you enable automatic zeros, your settings are applied to the following gradable items:
- Assignments and group assignments
- Tests and group tests
- Gradable individual and group discussions
- Discussions
- Journals
- Scorm
- Manual grade items
- LTI items
NOTE: The automatic zeros setting does not apply when you collect submissions offline. If you collect submissions offline, you must manually create the student attempts and submission dates and times.
Overall grade
Instructors can manage the overall grade settings by selecting Manage overall grade settings. (See the handout on “Setting Up the Overall Grade”)
Item Management
Using the new Items Management page accessible from the Gradebook Settings panel, instructors can configure column visibility for their gradebook view, ensuring a cleaner and more organized workspace when grading. Instructors can configure visibility for a single column selection or in bulk.
From the gradebook, select the Gradebook settings icon.
- Click Manage Gradebook Items in the Items Management section of Gradebook Settings.
- Modify the Instructor visibility for individual items, or select multiple items using the selection box and click the Edit Visibility option button.
The student view of any grading-related page is unaffected. If an instructor hides a column from their gradebook, that column continues to appear for students.
Grade Categories
Grade categories are groups of similar coursework. In this section, you will see a list of categories. Ten are default categories made available by Blackboard. If needed instructors can add additional categories to the gradebook.
- Select the Add New Category button.
- Type in the category name and press Enter.
NOTE: You can only edit or delete categories that you create. Default categories are not editable and cannot be deleted.
Course Rubrics
A rubric is a scoring tool that can be used to evaluate gradable work. In the Course Rubrics section, instructors can Create or Generate a new rubric. A generated rubric is created via the AI Design Assistant. As you create rubrics in the course, they will appear in the Course Rubrics section of the Gradebook Settings. Here you can edit rubrics, duplicate, and/or delete them.
Overall Grade Notations
You can create and manage grade notations to override a student’s overall grade if their performance falls outside the defined schema. For example, if a student must withdraw from a course in the middle of a semester, you can use a grade notation to indicate the student’s circumstance or situation without assigning an actual grade. To add a grade notation, follow the steps below.
- Select the Add Overall Grade Notation button.
- Enter a name and description and press Enter.
- You can select the More Options button to edit or delete the notation.
Once you have modified the gradebook settings, select the purple x to close the panel.
Assign a Grade Notation
- In the gradebook, select the Grades tab to go to Grades view.
- Select the student’s Overall Grade cell.
- From the menu, choose the notation. The cell will turn gray to indicate that you overrode the overall grade.
- To remove the override, select the student’s overall grade cell and select Undo Override. The Overall Grade reverts to the overall grade calculation that was previously specified.