Creating a new Category

Gradebook Categories let you organize and group related grade items into sections (grade items are required in order to add marks).  When grade items are grouped together in a category, you can distribute points equally across all grade items, weight individual items or drop the highest or lowest X number of items in the group (e.g., weekly quizzes). For any gradebook item that can stand on its own (e.g., Final Exam), a category is not necessary.

1. Select Grades from the course navbar.

2. Click the New button and select Category from the drop-down list.

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3. Enter a Name for the category.

4. Enter a Short Name to display in the grade book (optional).

5. If you want, type a Description of the category by selecting Show Description (optional).

   • Select the Allow users to view description check box if you want to make the category description available to users.

6. If you are using the Weighted system, enter the total Weight that you want the category to contribute towards the final grade.

   • Select Allow category grade to exceed category weight if you want to allow users' grades for the category to exceed 100%. E.g. 105%.

7. The Distribution of weight within the category will depend on how grade items will be treated within the category. For example, if you plan to have your students take 5 quizzes, but only count the top 4, your settings might look like the example below. Select one of the three distribution options.

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8. Select Display Options to enable the following features:

   • Display class average to users - allows users to see the class average on the item.

   • Display grade distribution to users - allows users to see a graph showing how grades were distributed between different percentiles.

   • Override display options for this item - allows for graded users to view grade information for this item differently from other items in the grade book. You can then select what you want to show.

9. Click Save and Close, Save or Save and New.