Managing Grades > The Gradebook Overview Page > Gradebook Preferences

Gradebook Preferences

You can use the Gradebook Preferences to determine what kind of information is included on your Gradebook page, how information is organized, and how scores are calculated. To display this feature, click the Preferences "arrow" icon on the right side of the page.

Note that fields displaying the Student Name, Student ID, the student Email, Total, and Total Time Spent are available by default. You can hide these columns by clicking the "X" icons in the column header, or you can also control the display of columns by deselecting or selecting them in the Columns dropdown menu.

When hiding Gradebook columns, keep in mind that the Student Name also serves as a link to the Student Grade Details page.

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Note: Student IDs are useful for large courses, when you have students with similar names. This information is part of the output when exporting your Gradebook or creating Gradebook reports. If you want to use Student IDs, you can have students create one from their Global Actions Menu or select the option to Require students to provide a student ID on login when creating or editing your course.

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Assignments

You can choose to sort assignments by your pre-defined grading Categories (by name or order from the Edit Grading Categories page) or the Due Date in ascending or descending order. The default setting is Sort by category name.

The rules for these settings are as follows:

° When Sort by category order is selected, any categories in the Gradebook are sorted as you have them arranged on the Edit Grading Categories page. Then, within each category, assignments are arranged in ascending due date (primary) and ascending alphabetical order (secondary).
° When Sort by category name is selected, any categories are sorted in ascending alphabetical order from left to right in the Gradebook table. Then, within each category, assignments are arranged in ascending due date (primary) and ascending alpha (secondary).
° When Sort by due date ascending is selected, the sort order is ascending due date (primary) and ascending alphabetically (secondary). The category for each assignment is displayed, but is not used for sorting.
° When Sort by due date descending is selected, the sort order is descending due date (primary) and descending alphabetically (secondary). The category for each assignment is displayed, but is not used for sorting.

Grades

You can choose to display your Gradebook's course score either as a Percentage or as Total points, or simply display the assignments as either Taken/Not Taken.

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Note: Selecting Total points gives you the raw score without factoring in weighting from categories.

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An assignment can contribute its earned and possible points to the course score by one of two methods:

° In method 1, the assignment has reached its unavailable date.
° In method 2, the assignment has not yet reached its unavailable date, but the student has submitted the most recent take.

Include missing assignments in totals

Select this check box to include the possible points (but not the earned points) for any assignments that would otherwise not report points to the course score. This includes hidden assignments, assignments not yet taken, or in progress assignments.

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Note: Selecting this option affects how assignments and scores are displayed on the Student Grade Details page. See The Student Grade Details Page for more information.

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Enable Shading

Select this check box to allow color coded shading of your students' scores. Using this option makes it easy to quickly review and scan scores. If your preference is to display scores as Total Points rather than as a Percentage, Enable Shading will continue to color-code your Gradebook scores as described.

° Red - below 70%.
° Orange - that 70% to 79.99%.
° Yellow - 80% to 89.99%.
° Green - 90% to 100%.

Drop Lowest Scores

The Drop Lowest Scores option allows you to determine the number of low-scoring assignments to drop from the course score calculations. Making a selection from the dropdown menu controls how the assignments are selected.

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Note: Scores from assignments that are practice, in progress, or still available and not taken do not qualify for being dropped.

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° Respecting grading categories. This option allows you to enter a number of assignments to exclude from individual grading categories (if categories have been created). See Creating and Editing Custom Grading Categories for details.
° Ignoring grading categories. This option allows you to enter a number of assignments to exclude from the course overall and ignores grading categories (if any).

If the Gradebook Preferences are set to display as a Percentage, then you can choose either Respecting grading categories or Ignoring grading categories. If the Gradebook Preferences are set to display scores as either Total points or Taken/Not Taken, Ignoring grading categories is the only available option.

Once your selections are complete, click Apply Changes to refresh the Gradebook page and see your changes. Click Hide All Options if you prefer to keep the Gradebook Preferences hidden.

Breaking Ties When Dropping Lowest Scores

When comparing assignment scores to determine which to drop, CengageNOWv2 uses the earned / possible quotient. This calculation takes into consideration all adjustments, such as those made for grading categories.

Resolving a tie between two assignment scores (e.g. two assignments at 50%) is as follows:

• First, the greatest level of precision is used to determine whether there is a difference. For example, if 50% from two assignments is actually 49.94 and 49.95, then 49.94 is lowest.
• In cases where there is a tie at this level of precision, the assignment with the lowest number of possible points is dropped.
• If the first two methods cannot determine which assignment to drop, one of the tied assignments is chosen at random.

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Note: When an assignment score is dropped, students and instructors will both see the assignment score flagged by the "dropped" icon. Clicking this icon takes you to the Edit Grade Details page.

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version 8.00.06.30.17