See what a particular student sees on the Grades page

To see what a particular student sees when that student clicks on the Grades link, follow these steps:

1. Go to Grades and click on the Enter Grades link.
2. Click on the name of a student - this will show you all of the grades for that student in an editable format, so you could provide feedback for that student.
3. Click on the action menu next to the student's name and select Preview - a new browser window opens with that student's view of that student's grades.

Rubrics, Dropbox, and Grades

Rubric assessment does not carry through to the grades tool. The score does (and comments can) if you use it as a scoring rubric but not the rubric assessment data. So linking the same rubric to a dropbox folder and its associated grade item *will not* automatically the rubric data from the dropbox folder to the associated grade item. Students can see rubric data but they have to look at the feedback within the dropbox tool. If you want the rubric data visible on the grade tool you will need to provide that data manually. Provide overall feedback for the grade item directing students to see rubric assessment info within the dropbox tool. 

Another Way to Do a Letter Final Grade

Though you can create a grade scheme that displays the total points earned as a letter grade instead of a percentage, you may want to allow for another way to allow for the "Smith factor" besides creating additional hidden grade items or changing extant grades as described in this post. You can also create a second grade item that is solely for the course's letter grade.

Copying course material and notifications

Be aware that when copying material into a course offering that is active, any users in that course offering who subscribe to notifications will receive notifications as appropriate for the new materials as soon as they appear. This can confuse students if you copy a News item, for example, that includes information about upcoming class events or due dates and you plan on editing those dates after you copy the News items over. (Users who sign up for News notifications receive an alert immediately when a News item is posted.) Similar situations will occur with Dropbox folders and Quizzes, which provide notifications two-days before end dates or due dates.

The decision to receive notifications is the student's, and they can choose text messages and/or email. Safer options are either to change dates and/or content in the source course offering before copying stuff over or creating items manually.

Bonus grade items in a weighted grading system

When working with a weighted grades system, any bonus items that are not part of another category should be standalone items and not part of a category (i.e., do not create a category that only contains bonus items). This is because each category in a weighted grade system must have a weight. For standalone bonus items, the weight should be the maximum amount of grade weight you want changed if students successfully complete those bonus items.