Grading & Feedback
Brightspace provides numerous different workflows to grade and provide feedback to your students. This chapter explores these different paths and you can choose the one which works best for you.
Embedded Files
Releasing Grades & Feedback
Releasing Grades & Feedback
Before we discuss the various grading workflows in Brightspace, there are some common actions used in all the grading tools you should understand. When completing the grading of a student’s work, you will be offered two buttons to choose from:
When you edit or select an item submitted by a student that you have previously graded, you will see two different buttons that replace the ones described above:
Update: This will update the student’s submission with any score or feedback changes you’ve made. The student will be able to see these updates.
Retract: This button will make a previously published score or feedback for the student’s submission hidden from them. You can then make changes to the score or feedback and click Publish to make it visible to them again.
Submission Icons
Submission Icons
Whenever you see the following icons in the Grades or any other tool in Brightspace, it usually means you can click on it to jump directly to the student’s assignment submission, discussion post(s), or quiz/exam attempt for viewing and grading.
Grading Via the Grades tool
Grading Via the Grades tool
The simplest way to grade student work is from the Grades tool, which can be found under the Assessment menu on the Navbar. It offers the most functionality and flexibility for assessing students in one place. This only works if you have created Grade Items for all of the graded activities in your course. Assignments, Discussions and Quizzes/Exams without corresponding Grade Items will not show up here.
Choose the Strategy that Works for You
Choose the Strategy that Works for You
A. You can click the Submission Icons on the grid to view, grade, and provide feedback on student work.
B. You can click on a student’s name to bring up a listing of all of their submissions to the graded items in your course.
C. You can click the Action Buttons in the column headings and select Enter Grades to grade students for the activity that column represents.
D. You can click the Switch to Spreadsheet Mode button to enter scores manually into the cells of the Grades tool grid.
Preview How Students Will See their Grades
Preview How Students Will See their Grades
Click the Action Button next to the student’s name.
Select Preview from the menu that appears. This will bring up a window with a table showing you their scores from the students’ perspective.
Grading Via the Individual Activity Tools
Grading Via the Individual Activity Tools
Assignments, Discussion Topics, and Exams/Quizzes can each be individually graded from within their specific tools.
Grading Assignments
Grading Assignments
Click the Assessments link in the Navbar and select Assignments.
When the list of your assignments appears, click the name of the one you wish to grade.
The Assignment Submissions page will appear. This page lists all of your students in the course with an indented list of links to their submissions for the assignment you selected in Step 2.
Click the link for the first student’s submission to go to the Grade Assignment Page.
The left side of this page displays your student’s work. Text Submission assignments will have the content the student submitted using the Brightspace Editor, and File Submission assignments will show an embedded viewer of the file with a set of navigation and annotation tools.
The right side of the page gives you controls for communicating, assigning a score, and giving feedback.
Enter a score for this student’s submission and some feedback in the right-hand column of the page.
Click either the Publish or Save Draft buttons. See the Releasing Grades & Feedback section for a description of what these buttons do.
Do one of the following:
a. To grade the next student or submission, click either of the Next Student arrow buttons located on the top-right and bottom-right corners of the page. Or...
b. Go back to the Assignments tool by clicking the Back to submissions link in the upper-left corner of the page.
Grading Discussions (Whole Topic)
Grading Discussions (Whole Topic)
Click the Assessments link in the Navbar and select Discussions.
When the Discussions page appears, click the Action Button next to the Discussion Topic you wish to grade.
Select Assess Topic from the menu that appears.
Don't see the Assess Topic option? You need to associate the topic with a Grade Item. See Step 6 through 9 of the Create A New Topic section for instructions.
When the Assess Topic page appears, you will see a list of your students. Click the Topic Score link underneath a student’s name.
A pop-up window will appear with the student’s name and profile photo at the top.
a) The Score field is located on the upper-right corner of the pop-up.
If you set this topic to be graded by individual post, the top Score field will show a total grade instead of an editable field.
By default, students recieve a single grade for all of their posts in a given Discussion Topic. If you need to grade individual posts, see Step 8b of the Create A New Topic section.
b) A Feedback text area is in the middle of the pop-up for you to provide direct feedback to the student. Only the student can see what you enter here.
c) At the bottom of the pop-up is a listing of all the student’s posts in the topic.
d) To see who the student is replying to, or replies to a particular post, Click the blue post title text.
Score the student’s performance in the topic and provide them with feedback.
Click either the Publish or Save Draft buttons. See the Releasing Grades & Feedback section for a description of what these buttons do.
Note: You can return to Assess Topic > Topic Score at any time to open the grading window and review the separate scores for a student’s individual posts in a Topic.
Click the Action Button next to the Discussion Topic you wish to grade and select Assess Topic.
Click the Topic Score link underneath a student’s name to go to the grading screen for their discussion posts.
The Grade Discussion tool displays all of a student's posts in that Discussion Topic and allows you to provide overall feedback only they can see.
You won't see the Assess Topic option if you do not have a Grade Item connected to the Discussion Topic!
See the section Setting up your Course Grade Book, and Working With Discussion Forums and Topics for instructions on how to set these up correctly.
Grading Discussions (Individual Posts)
Grading Discussions (Individual Posts)
Brightspace also allows you to grade Discussion Topics by assigning points to individual posts. In order to do this, you need to enable the option shown in Step 8b of the Creating Discussion Topics section.
Follow Steps 1 through 4 in the previous section, Grading Discussions (Whole Topic).
Assign points to each of the student's posts. It is up to you how to divide the points up, so you can, for instance, have students' first post be worth more points than subsequent replies.
Provide some overall feedback to the student which will only be visible to them on the Grades page.
Click either the Publish or Save Draft buttons. See the Releasing Grades & Feedback section for a description of what these buttons do.
Clicking either of the two buttons mentioned above will update the total shown in the upper-right corner of the page.
Note: You can return to Assess Topic > Topic Score at any time to open the grading window and review the separate scores for a student’s individual posts in a Topic.
Student View of Graded Discussions
Student View of Graded Discussions
The screenshot to the right depicts what students see in the Grades tool after a Discussion Topic has been graded. Note, that the content entered in the Overall Feedback field shown in previous sections is displayed here, and only total point values for the Discussion Topic are shown. If you want students to see what they received for each individual post, you will need to include those amounts in the Overall Feedback field when grading.
Grading Quizzes & Exams
Grading Quizzes & Exams
Click the Assessments link in the Navbar and select Quizzes & Exams.
When the Manage Quizzes page appears, click the Action Button next to the Quiz or Exam you wish to grade.
Select Grade from the menu that appears.
When the Grade Quiz page appears, you will see a list of your students. Under each student’s name will be a list of the Attempts they made to complete the quiz or exam. Click one of the first student’s attempts. The Grade Attempt page will appear.
Check the student’s answers and adjust points as needed.
When finished grading the student’s work, click either the Publish or Save Draft buttons. See the Releasing Grades & Feedback section for a description of what these buttons do.
Do one of the following:
a. To grade the next student, click the Next Student arrow button located on the top-right of the page. Or...
b. Go back to the Grade Quiz page by clicking the Back link in the upper-left corner of the page.
Click the Action Button next to the Quiz or Exam you wish to grade and select Grade.
The Quix/Exam grading screen shows you a list of your students and each attempt they made. Click an attempt's link to grade it.
The Attempt grading screen allows you to manually assign or override the points a student receives for each question and provide feedback.
Resetting or Submitting a Student's Quiz/Exam Attempt
Resetting or Submitting a Student's Quiz/Exam Attempt
Use these instructions when a student's quiz or exam attempt gets "stuck".
Go to the Assessments menu in the Navbar and select Quizzes & Exams.
When the Manage Quizzes page appears, click the Action Button next to the Quiz or Exam you wish to grade.
Select Grade from the menu that appears.
On the next page, find the student with the attempt you want to reset.
a. If the student is not listed, click the Show Search Options link. Otherwise, continue to Step 5.
b. Select Users with attempts in progress from the drop-down labeled Restrict to.
c. With your cursor in the "Search for..." box, hit Enter or Return (depending on your keyboard layout).
Do one of the following:
a. To Reset the attempt and make them start over, click the checkbox next to the student's name to reset all their attempts on this quiz/exam, or click the checkbox next to the specific attempt the student needs reset (if they have multiple attempts). Then, click the Reset button.
b. To Submit the attempt for them, click the Enter quiz as user button and submit the attempt. (If this button is not available, please contact the Academic Innovation team for help.)
Click the Enter Quiz as User button to submit the attempt for them (This button only appears in certain circumstances)
Click the Action Button next to the Quiz or Exam you wish to grade and select Grade.
Click the checkbox next to the student or their attempt that needs to be reset and click the Reset button.
If you can't find the student in the list, change the search options by clicking the Show Search Options link.
Grading Via QuickEval
Grading Via QuickEval
The Quick Eval tool will show you a list of everything awaiting your attention in the course. It also has a multi-course view which will show you everything awaiting your attention in all of your courses. To try Quick Eval, click the Quick Eval link in the course’s Navbar.
Releasing Final Course Grades
Releasing Final Course Grades
The final grade for your course is not shown to students until you specifically Release it. There are several ways to do this.
Releasing a single student’s final grade
Releasing a single student’s final grade
Click the student’s name in the Grades tool to see the record page for that student.
Click to put a check in the Release Final Calculated Grade checkbox.
Do one of the Following:
a. Click the Save and Close button to return to the Grades tool.
b. Click the Save button, scroll to the top of the page and click the Next Record right-arrow button to see the next student’s record page.
Alternatively, you can follow Steps 1 through 4 in the next section then click the Released checkbox in each student’s row whose final grade is ready to be released. Then click the Save button to keep working on this page, or Save and Close to return to the Grades tool.
Click a student's name in the Grades tool to bring up a report with all of their grades which also allows you to Release their Final Grade.
Click the Release Final Calculated Grade checkbox and then either the Save and Close button to go back to the Grades tool or the Save button to continue Releasing other students' Final Grade.
Releasing the final grade for all students
Releasing the final grade for all students
Go to the Grades tool.
Click the Action Button next to the Final Calculated Grade column heading.
Select Enter Grades.
When the Final Grades page appears, look over the Final Calculated Grades for each student. If necessary, make adjustments in the Final Adjusted Grade column, and enter overall feedback for the course in the feedback column.
Read the Warning below and ensure all students in the course are listed on one page.
Click the Select all rows checkbox if all of your students’ grades are ready to be released.
Click the Release/Unrelease button to release all final calculated grades for all students.
Click the Save and Close button.
Warning
Brightspace splits long lists of students into pages. The Select all rows checkbox only selects the currently visible set of rows, not those on subsequent pages! Either perform steps 5 and 6 on each page of the Final Grades page, or set a higher number of rows per page using the # per page selector at the bottom of the page.
Posting Final Grades in MaineStreet
Posting Final Grades in MaineStreet
The video to the right walks you through how to post final grades in MaineStreet. To enlarge the video, click either "Watch on YouTube" or the square "Full Screen" icon in the bottom right corner.
If you need personal assistance with MaineStreet, please visit Registration & Scheduling's site or email registerusm@maine.edu.
Video: Posting Final Grades in MaineStreet
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