5. Grade Submission Automation – FAQ & Troubleshooting

Click on the question to expand. Got a question that’s not listed here? Ask for help from a Learning Design & Technology Specialist in the LX.lab.

 

 

My subject has students from two (or more) subject codes. What do I need to do?

That depends – are the assignment structures and weightings the same?

Yes: Nothing extra – the process will recognize the subject code each student is enrolled in, and transfer the marks accordingly.

No, there are different assessments and weightings – this is a bit more complicated. There is a solution where you calculate two different Total columns, then use Blackboard’s Min/Max feature to determine the right one. Your best course of action is to book an appointment with a Learning Design & Technology Specialist (LDaTS) in the LX.lab to help you.

You can also set up a Smart View Filter so that you can view students based on cohorts, which can help to ensure you’re putting the right marks in the right columns.

 

I appear to have set up the SYS_WEIGHTED_TOTAL correctly, but when I add a component mark it doesn’t come through. How do I fix this?

Check that all your component columns have “marks possible” set up correctly. If it’s set to 0, the marks won’t show up in the total.

 

Does it matter what I mark assessments out of when it comes to calculating the SYS_WEIGHTED_TOTAL?

No. The SYS_WEIGHTED_TOTAL calculations work off percentages, not scores, so it makes no difference if you mark out of 5, 30, 100 etc.

 

All of my students are still undertaking a prac/internship by the time grades due date. What should I do?

All students will need an override grade, otherwise they’ll receive an ‘E’ (incomplete) on their transcript, which comes with the instruction ‘check with your subject coordinator’!

You can manually add in an override for each student in the Grade Centre, but we’d recommend using the ‘offline’ feature to download the SYS_OVERRIDE column to a CSV spreadsheet, batch change each grade to Q (activity pending) if it’s available, or W (withheld, for incomplete) grades. You can then upload the sheet to change all override grades at once.

 

How do I change a student’s final mark?

You cannot change the final mark directly, as it is a calculated column. To change a student’s final mark, you must modify a component mark, and the change will then be reflected in the total.

 

My students have up to three decimal points in their final result (eg. 67.285). How will this be handled?

As it calculates, the final mark displays up to three decimal places. This means component marks aren’t rounded up or down. When the final mark is sent to CASS, this is rounded up or down to the nearest whole number (eg. 49.5 is rounded up to 50 – P, 49.4 is rounded down to 49 – X.)

 

What should I do with Pass/Fail subjects?

The Pass/Fail schema will be automatically set up from CASS. However, it will still base this final grade on the SYS_WEIGHTED_TOTAL number. As long as the SYS_WEIGHTED_TOTAL calculates to 50-100, the student will receive a Pass. <50, the student will receive a Fail.