What actions can instructors perform on individual Gradebook items?

Gradebook Item Actions

The drop-down menu in each gradebook item column allows you to perform several actions. These actions vary somewhat, depending on the origin of the item. Items created within the Gradebook itself allow more options than items being sent to the Gradebook from other tools.  

All gradebook items allow you to do the following:

  • Edit Item Details
  • View Grade Statistics
  • Move Left
  • Move Right
  • Hide Item
  • Message Students

Gradebook-created items also allow you to perform these two additional actions:

  • Set Score for Empty Cells
  • Delete Item

Edit Item Details

The Edit Item Details option allows you to make changes to Extra Credit, the Grading Rubric, Category, Release, and grade calculation settings.

For Gradebook-created items, you may also modify the Title, Point value, and Due date. For items coming from other tools, those details must be modified within the origin tool.

View Grade Statistics

The View Grade Statistics option gives you a quick summary of the grade distribution for that item, including the mean, median, standard deviation, lowest score, highest score, total number of graded scores, and a bar chart illustrating the data.

Move Left

The Move Left option moves the selected item one column to the left.

Move Right

The Move Right option moves the selected item one column to the right.

Hide Item.

The Hide Item option hides the column from the instructor's display. However, it DOES NOT control release of the item to students.

Notice that hidden items are indicated by small arrows in place of the item. Click on the arrows to show the item again.

Message students.

The Message Students option allows you to send a quick message to students regarding the selected gradebook item.

  1. Enter a Subject for your message.
  2. Type your message into the text box provided. (Note: Only plain text is supported. The rich text editor is not available here.)
  3. Choose the recipients of the message from the drop-down menu. You can select Ungraded Students, Graded Students, or All Students.
  4. Specify if you want to send the message to the whole Site, or only a selected Group in the drop-down menu.
  5. The Show Recipients button will display a list of the students selected to receive the message.
  6. Click Send to send the message.

Set Score for Empty Cells

For Gradebook-created items, you may select Set Score for Empty Cells to automatically set the score for all ungraded students for that gradebook item only. You may also select a specific section or group from the drop-down menu to apply the specified grade to only that section or group. This action only applies to students with ungraded items. Previously graded students will not be affected.

Delete Item

For Gradebook-created items, you may select Delete Item to remove the item and all associated scores for that item.

Note: Be careful! This action cannot be undone! There is no UNDO button for deleting a grade item and its scores from the Gradebook.