Creating and Assigning Grade Book Categories

The following article details how to create categories in the Grade Book.

Please note that the course layout, steps, and screenshots shown below may differ slightly for your campus.

There are two types of categories in Brightspace which each have a separate function. In the Grade Book, categories are used to organize grade items and allow specified grade calculations. In Gradable Activities, such as Assignments and Quizzes, categories can be used to sort items based on desired criteria such as unit, chapter, week, etc. For setting up categories for Gradable Activities, click here.

Creating Grade Book Categories

1. Navigate to the Grade Book in your course and click the Manage Grades tab.
    
2. To add a Category, select New and choose Category.
   
    
3. Give the new category a name and, if desired, a short name and description.
    
4. For Points Based Systems: under the Grading header select your settings.
   1. “Can Exceed” should be checked if you gave bonus points to activities in this category which would allow students to score higher than the total points possible.
   2. “Exclude from Final Grade Calculation” can be checked if you wish to exclude this category from the Final Calculated Grade.
   3. Distribution options should be checked if you want all items in the category to be worth the same number of points. If this option is selected, enter a value in the “Points per item” field. Optionally, you can enter a value for the number of highest or lowest non-bonus items you wish to drop for each user.
       
5. For Weighted Systems: under the Grading header select your settings.
   1.  “Weight” will determine what percentage of the final grade the category is worth. 
   2. “Allow category grade to exceed category weight” should be checked if you gave bonus points to activities in this category which would allow students to score higher than 100%.
   3. Distribution options can be selected for how you would like to weight the items within a category.
      1. "Manually assign weight to items in the category" allows you to weight items differently with the sum totaling 100%. 
      2. "Distribute weights by points across all items in the category" will distribute weights based on the points possible for grade items.
      3. "Distribute weight evenly across all items" should be checked if you want all items in the category to be worth the same percentage. Optionally, you can enter a value for the number of highest or lowest non-bonus items you wish to drop for each user.
          
6. Under the Display Options header for either grading system select the information displayed to students.
   1. “Display class average to users” will display the class average for the category to students.
   2. “Display grade distribution to users” will provide students a graph showing how grades were distributed between different percentiles within the category.
   3. “Override display options for this item” must be checked if you would like students to view grade information for this category differently from other items in the grade book. Until this option is checked, the Org Unit display options will be selected and grayed out.
       
7. From the Restrictions tab, select “Hide from Users” to hide the category from students. If this option is selected, all grade items within the category will also be hidden.
    
8. Under Availability you can select a Start and End Date for the grade item and check the option to show in the course calendar. Note that grade item availability and availability for gradable activities are separate. When a Start and End are selected in this view, they apply only to the grade item or category itself.
    
9. Under Release Conditions optionally attach an existing condition or create and attach a new one.
    
10. When you are finished, click Save and Close to be brought back to Manage Grades where the new category will appear at the bottom of the list.

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Adding Grade Items to Categories

1. Navigate to the Grade Book in your course and click the Manage Grades tab.
    
2. To add a grade item to a category, click the name of the grade item to access the “Edit Item” page.
    
3. Under “Category” click the drop-down menu and select the desired category. If you would like to create a new category, click [New Category] and follow the steps above for creating a new grade book category.
   
    
4. Under the Grading header, enter a value in the “Weight” box if weighting manually. This will determine what percentage of the category the grade item is worth. Otherwise, the weight will calculate automatically based on the category settings.
    
5. When you are finished, click Save and Close.

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If you need further assistance or have additional questions please contact:
SUNY Online Support Services Help Desk
1-844-673-6786 | sunyonlinehelp@suny.edu