Creating a grade book with the Grades Setup Wizard

In the Grades tool, if a grade book is not set up or imported for your course, you will see the Grades Setup Wizard page when you first navigate to the tool. You can also click Setup Wizard to open it.

The Grades Setup Wizard guides you through multiple steps that contain set up options you must choose from to create your grade book.

Tip Many options in the Grades Setup Wizard have Get help on icons you can click to find additional explanations on what each option can do.

Step 1: Choose Grading System
Step 2: Final Grade Released
Step 3: Grade Calculations
Step 4: Choose Default Grade Scheme
Step 5: Managing View Display Options
Step 6: Student View Display Options
Step 7: Grade Setup Summary
Optimal Grades tool settings for large courses

Step 1: Choose Grading System

The grading system determines what kind of valuation system is applied to categories and grade items in your grade book.

Grading system	Description
Weighted	Grade items and categories are calculated as a percentage of a final grade worth 100%. The Max. Points assigned to individual grade items can be any value, but their contribution towards the final grade is always their assigned percentage value.
Points	Grade items are calculated using a points system in which the points assigned to each grade item are totaled for the final grade.
Formula	Grade items are calculated using the points system, but a custom defined formula is used to set conditions around how grade items contribute to the final grade.

See Understanding grading systems.

Step 2: Final Grade Released

You can choose the type of final grade calculation you want to release to students.

Option	Description
Calculated Final Grade	The final grade calculated by the grade book. You cannot adjust the final grade without adjusting grade item scores.
Adjusted Final Grade	You can manually change the final grade calculation without affecting grade item scores.

Step 3: Grade Calculations

The grade calculations step provides additional choices for calculating users’ grades. Specifically, it lets you decide how you want to calculate ungraded items and whether you want to keep users’ final grades up to date automatically.

Option	Description
Drop ungraded items	Grade items that you have not entered grades for are not counted towards users’ milestone grades and final grades. They are ignored in both calculation types. Assign a 0 for grade items you want to treat as incomplete or grade 0.
Treat ungraded items as 0	Grade items that you have not entered grades for automatically count as 0 towards users’ final grades. Select this option if you leave grade items blank because no work was submitted and you do not want to manually evaluate incomplete grade items. Note If you add new items to the grade book later, users receive 0 until you update their scores.
Automatically keep final grade updated	If you select this check box, final grades are automatically adjusted after changing a grade item or a calculation option. If you do not select this option, you must manually go to grade book to perform final grade recalculations. Tip Do not select this check box if you need to reduce page reload time for a grade book that contains a large class size.

Drop ungraded items

Grade items that you have not entered grades for are not counted towards users’ milestone grades and final grades. They are ignored in both calculation types.

Assign a 0 for grade items you want to treat as incomplete or grade 0.

Treat ungraded items as 0

Grade items that you have not entered grades for automatically count as 0 towards users’ final grades.

Select this option if you leave grade items blank because no work was submitted and you do not want to manually evaluate incomplete grade items.

Note If you add new items to the grade book later, users receive 0 until you update their scores.

Automatically keep final grade updated

If you select this check box, final grades are automatically adjusted after changing a grade item or a calculation option. If you do not select this option, you must manually go to grade book to perform final grade recalculations.

Tip Do not select this check box if you need to reduce page reload time for a grade book that contains a large class size.

Step 4: Choose Default Grade Scheme

Grade schemes define how grades are organized or labeled within a course or for a specific grade item. You can create grade schemes at the organization level and make them available to courses, or you can create grade schemes for use only at the course level.

Tip Select a grade scheme that matches how final grades are released to users by your institution. For example, if letter grades (e.g. A, B+, C-) are used at your institution, create or select an existing Letter grade scheme and apply it as the default grade scheme.

Step 5: Managing View Display Options

This step controls how you see grade calculation data.

Option	Description
Number of decimal places to display	You can set the number of decimal places that display for items in your grade book. The default value is 2 and the maximum value is 5. (This option does not manage how many decimal places are displayed to students. See Student View Display Options for more information.) Note This option does not control how many decimals the Grades tool rounds to when calculating grades. The calculation logic is set by your organization’s site administrator.

Number of decimal places to display

You can set the number of decimal places that display for items in your grade book. The default value is 2 and the maximum value is 5. (This option does not manage how many decimal places are displayed to students. See Student View Display Options for more information.)

Note This option does not control how many decimals the Grades tool rounds to when calculating grades. The calculation logic is set by your organization’s site administrator.

Step 6: Student View Display Options

This step controls how grades appear to users. You can set whether they see their grades as straight values, percentages, or scheme levels, and whether they can see the calculation method (logic) behind their final grade.

Option	Description
Points grade	This setting determines whether or not the Points grade value associated with a grade item is displayed in the student view of grades. E.g., 6/10.
Weighted grade	This setting determines whether or not the Weighted grade value associated with a grade item is displayed in the student view of grades. E.g., 3/5 (for a user who scored 60% on a grade item worth 50% of a category worth 10% of the final grade). Note This option is only available if you choose the Weighted grading system in Step 2.
Grade scheme symbol	Releasing the grade scheme symbol to a user shows them the scheme level they received on a grade item. E.g., “Good”, "A-"
Grade scheme color	Releasing the grade scheme color shows a user the color associated with the scheme level they received. E.g., .
Number of decimal places to display	Controls the number of decimal places users see in the grade book. The default value is 2 and the maximum value is 5. Note This option only changes how many decimals display; it does not control how many decimals the Grades tool rounds to when calculating grades. The calculation logic is set by your organization’s site administration.
Number of characters to display for Text items	Controls the number of characters users see for a text item. When setting this value you should try to find a balance between presenting enough information for users to recognize the Text item and keeping the item short enough that it displays nicely. The default value is 15 and the maximum value is 50.
Display final grade calculation to users	Displaying the final grade calculation to users allows them to view how their final grade was calculated. They can see which grade items contributed to their final grade and how much, which grade items were bonus grades, and whether their grade was adjusted. Note This option is only available in the weighted and points grading systems.

Step 7: Grade Setup Summary

The final step summarizes the choices you made while setting up your grade book. If you change your mind on any of the choices, click Go Back to return to the step and adjust it. Clicking Finish on this page completes the set up and takes you to a list of options for continuing work in the Grades tool:

Create a New Grade Category
Create a New Grade Item
Import Grades
Create a New Grade Scheme
Manage Grade Items and Categories
Enter Grades

Optimal Grades tool settings for large courses

If your grade book contains a lot of users or grade items, you might find that it loads slowly. Consider the following tips to improve performance.

Set the number of users to display per page to a low value.
Sort the User List by user instead of grades.
View the User List by group or section if possible.
Do not show decimal places in the grade book.
Do not repeat user details or grade item details in the grade book.
Do not repeat the calculated final grade or the adjusted final grade at the start of the grade book.
Do not select the Automatically keep final grade updated option.
Only display one user detail (i.e., Email, Username, First Name, Last Name) in the grade book.
Only display one grade detail (i.e., Points grade, Weighted grade, Grade scheme symbol, Grade scheme color) in the grade book.
Only display grade items and categories that you want to edit in Spreadsheet View in the grade book.
Do not create unnecessary grade items or categories.
Do not create unnecessary Calculated or Formula grade items.
Avoid making changes to grade schemes, the grading system, or the final grade calculation type once grades are assigned to users.
Only import users and grade items when data has changed.